


What it Was

by asocialconstruct



Series: Basic [14]
Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:15:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 39
Words: 71,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just all of the Basic series fics reposted in correct chronological order, so if you've already read all of those, you've already read this.  [9-12: ch3 is new, hasn't been posted anywhere before, but I still haven't gotten to adding any of the later parts here]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cain: Fifty

**Cain**

First day of basic was worse than he’d expected.  He’d expected it to be bad, but not this bad, fucking exhausted and no goddamn peace to just take a piss in the middle of the night.  Fucking Forty-six followed him in and wanted to start shit, so there wasn’t anything to do but punch the fucker.

Sacha bounced off the wall, caught off guard by a hit to the jaw.  Forty-six was taller, had the reach, but Sacha was seeing red and not about to spend the first night of basic running with his tail between his legs.  He threw himself at the asshole, trying to get under his guard until the door banged open and they were being pulled apart.

That big fucker Six went after Forty-six, spinning him with a hand on his shoulder, and Sacha got hauled back kicking by someone he couldn’t see.

“Fuck, this one doesn’t know how to quit,” the fucker said, dragging him back with his arms hooked in Sacha’s, tall enough to pull his feet off the floor.  Six punched Forty-six, dropping him to the concrete.  Poor bastard got kicked in the balls, groaning at Six’s feet.

“You assholes are done,” Six said, kicking Forty-six again.  “No more playground fights.”

“What the fuck do you care?” Sacha snapped at Six, trying to pull out of the pin hold he was in.  “Didn’t see anyone stop you when you kicked Ten’s teeth in this morning.”

“Because if Two catches you dumb shits fighting we’re all going to get laps, so the big boys learn how to not get caught,” the one holding him said in his ear.  “Next time find a smarter place for it til they send you back to the shithole you came from, you little cocksucker.”

Six gave Forty-six another kick in the side and laughed.  “You got that one, Eight?” Six asked, hauling the poor fucker up and throwing a glance back at the asshole holding Sacha. Six pushed Forty-six out the door in front of him.

“Yeah, got him,” Eight said, throwing Sacha away from him as the door closed, leaving them alone.

Sacha caught his balance, turning to throw himself at Eight too.  Not his fucking fault Forty-six was dumb enough to pick a fight in the middle of the night, Sacha wasn’t going to get his ass kicked just for standing up for himself.

Eight just caught his wrist before he could even get close, though, too fast for him.  “You’re a dumb little shit, but you got balls at least,” Eight said, twisting his arm behind his back.  “You’re not gonna last long if you keep throwing punches without knowing how to duck them, Fifty.”

Fuck.  Eight just stood there behind him again, his other hand on Sacha’s shoulder with just enough pressure to make him know it could hurt worse.  Eight knew what the fuck he was doing; Sacha only knew he had to get off the bottom of the rankings so he wouldn’t get washed out and laughed at when he crawled back to his sister’s, or worse, their father’s.  Had to at least get out of the bottom ten so he wouldn’t get cut, had to prove to everyone at home that he wasn’t just a fucking waste.  

He’d gotten on his knees for worse reasons, he could get through basic if he could just hang on to someone like Eight for long enough to get out of the bottom ten and figure out where to go from there.

“So teach me,” Sacha said through gritted teeth, not about to let the bastard know how much it fucking hurt.  Or that he was getting hard with Eight’s hips pressed up against his ass.

Eight laughed, short and surprised and no kindness in it.  “No,” Eight said, pushing him away stumbling again.  “Don’t got time for gypsy trash.  You got knocked down to Fifty because that’s where you’re gonna stay.”

Sacha glared at him, trying not to rub at his wrist.  “Not for long.  Gonna get out of here at the top,” he said, even though he didn’t believe it.  Eight laughed at him again, the fucker.

“Only if you don’t get yourself killed first, baby.  But you don’t got anything I want, I got no reason to help you.  You’re on your own,” Eight said, and turned to go.

“Then fuck me,” Sacha said to his back, and Eight stopped.  “Fuck me and teach me how fight, that’s the deal Six and Forty made, isn’t it?”  Six had picked Forty, not the other way around, but it didn’t fucking matter as long as Sacha got what he wanted out of it.

Eight turned around then, looking Sacha up and down, Eight weighing him up like he was just going to beat the shit out of him anyway.  He watched Eight take a step back towards him and another, determined to not back down until Eight was standing right on top of him and this didn’t seem like such a fucking great idea after all.

He should have expected it when Eight twisted him around by the arm again, shoving him face first against the wall, and then he knew it wasn’t a good idea at all, but then it was too late.

“You want to get fucked, baby?  Why don’t you just wash out and run back home, easier for everyone that way,” Eight murmured against Sacha’s ear, leaning into him.  Hard already, though, Sacha could tell that, grinding against him, and Sacha felt his own cock twitch at the thought.

It was a stupid fucking idea, but it was that or get the shit beaten out of him every fucking day and every fucking night until they sent him home to die slow instead of fast.

“Not going back.  You gonna do it or not?” Sacha spat, needing it but not about to beg for it.  

Eight let his wrist go, running a hand down his arm.  “You done this before, sweetheart?  Basic ain’t kind to virgins.”

“Yeah,” Sacha lied, even though he’d only fucked around in school.  Blowjobs weren’t sex, they were just a thing you did to get what you wanted, but better to have it over with and with someone he picked instead of waiting for it to happen like Forty-nine had.  Sacha wasn’t going to end up like that poor bastard, passed around and laughed at and bloody on the first day already.

Eight laughed at him, leaning down to trail his mouth along the back of Sacha’s neck, making him get harder even if he was scared, or maybe he was hard because he was scared.  “You’re a fucking liar,” Eight murmured against his neck, and Sacha stiffened, but Eight started undoing his belt.  “You sure about this, baby?”

“Yes, fuck, just get it over with.”

Eight leaned into him, hands on Sacha’s waist.  “You sure?  No going back on this, sweetheart.  Once I do it, you’re gonna get what you want, whether you still want it or not.”

Sacha glared back at him.  “Who the fuck are you, my dad?  Just do it.”

Eight turned Sacha to face him with a half smile, pulling him away from the wall so Eight could lean against it.  “You’re a crazy little fucker.  Get on your knees, it’ll make it easier,” he said, pushing Sacha down.

Even if it put off the inevitable, at least this was familiar.  Eight pulled his cock out, only half hard, but Sacha knew what to do about that.  Sacha got him up with a couple light strokes and then swallowed him, ready to get this shit over with as fast as possible and trying not to be grateful that Eight didn’t want to drag it out either.

Sacha tried to get him slicked good, not looking forward to being fucked with no lube but his own spit, but there wasn’t anything else and it would happen sooner or later anyway, the longer he stayed on the bottom of the rankings.  So he tried to concentrate on getting Eight close, so it wouldn’t last too long.

“Fuck, you’ve done this before,” Eight breathed, tilting his head back against the wall.  Sacha looked up at him, getting harder himself as he watched Eight’s lips part.  Could have just gotten him off then if Eight had let him, and maybe that would have been enough.

But Eight pulled him up by the shoulder, breathing hard.  “That’s enough.  Get up, let’s get this over with,” he said, pushing Sacha down over one of the sinks.  Worst fucking place for it, since Sacha couldn’t not catch a look at Eight coming up behind him in the mirror before he put his head down and just let it happen.

It was hard and fast, just cold air and hot pain and Sacha tried not to think about it, biting the back of his hand while Eight got it over with.  Tried to tell himself it was better this way because he’d asked for it instead of waiting for it to happen, but that didn’t help any when Eight reached down to stroke Sacha’s hard cock.  

Sacha got off on it like a cheap whore, the pain and his hard cock crossing wires in his head as he tried to concentrate on just getting it over with.  Eight didn’t last long after, pulling out right away and wiping his hand on the hem of Sacha’s shirt.  Sacha let himself be pulled back together as Eight pulled him back up standing, his knees a little shaky from it.  

He leaned against the sink, better that than cling to Eight.

“It’ll be better next time, baby,” Eight said, and suddenly they were kissing, Eight’s mouth covering his and trapping him.  Pushed his mouth open warm and slow, and it was worse than being fucked because it didn’t hurt and Sacha could almost think he wanted it.

He pushed Eight away and punched the fucker in the mouth.  If they were going to do this, there was no point in making it anything other than what it was.  

Eight stared at him, bringing hand up to press at his swelling lip.  Then he backhanded Sacha against the wall.

Sacha bounced back at him, but Eight caught him by the shirt and pressed him hard against the wall, Eight’s fist on his chest crushing the air out of him.  “You get a free pass this time, sweetheart,” Eight said, leaning in to put his mouth next to Sacha’s ear, “but you’re done now.  You do what I tell you or you’re on your own again.  You understand me?”

“Fuck you.”

“Other way around, baby.  You understand me or not?” Eight said.  

No getting out of it now.  Sacha nodded tightly.

“Good.  Go get some sleep and we’ll work on your shitty left hook in the morning.”


	2. Cain: Forty-Seven

**Cain**

Eight wasn’t so bad.  Could have been worse, could have given him a black eye every time Sacha fucked up and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, like Six did with Forty.  But Eight pulled his punches until Sacha got faster, even let him land a couple hits and showed him how to punch harder.

Didn’t mean Sacha liked any of it, didn’t mean that he liked having Eight try to make it something it wasn’t, like they were friends and Eight was doing this out of charity instead of just fucking him.  It was just a deal, just to get both of them what they wanted, there wasn’t any kindness or enjoying in it.  Sacha avoided him when he could, waiting for Eight to come find him at mess to throw punches or pull him out of peeling potatoes for a quick fuck.

Couldn’t avoid him when Eight bailed his ass out, though, Eight hauling Twenty off him at lunch and punching the fucker in the face while Sacha caught his breath.  

 _You okay, baby?_  

Like Eight gave a fuck, like he cared about anything after besides dragging Sacha off to the empty barracks to fuck after.  Like it fucking mattered how Sacha felt because here he was straddling Eight getting fucked, Eight’s hands on him even though Twenty had given him a black eye that was already starting to swell shut.

Sacha swallowed and tried not to show how badly he was shaking, but it just fucking hurt.  At least last time it had been so fast he didn’t have time to think about how much it hurt until it was over, but Eight was making him take it slow this time.  Eight lay back and let Sacha do the work, leaving him exposed where Eight could see all of him.  At least the other way he hadn’t had to think about Eight watching him bite his lip and try not to cry with how bad it hurt.

“Shh, baby, take your time,” Eight said, smoothing a rough hand down his thigh.  Sacha took a breath and tried to calm himself down, easing into Eight’s hands on his shoulders and his waist.  

He was just so fucking sore and tired from pushups that morning, Two pressing his boot into the middle of his back, his mouth still tasting dirty where his face has been pressed into the mud and his arms burning.  Sore and tired from fighting his way up from Fifty, his hands and his jaw and his face pounding where Twenty had gotten him.  But Eight wanted it this way, and he’d kept Sacha from having his ass kicked, so Sacha would just get through with it.  

Eight murmured something, watching him with his eyes half closed as Sacha tried to get a rhythm, but he was shaky and kept stopping, sweating with the pain of it and Eight watching him.  Eight caught him by the wrist, and Sacha almost thanked him when he thought Eight was going to push him off and roll him over.  

But Eight kissed the inside of his wrist, his lips warm and too soft to cut through how badly Sacha ached everywhere else, and then Eight slicked Sacha’s palm and pushed his hand down to wrap around his own cock.

Sacha ground his teeth and closed his eyes to keep from blushing like a fucking fairy, embarrassed with Eight watching him jerk himself off and now Eight’s hands back on his ass.  Eight brought his knees up and started fucking him, holding Sacha’s ass in place and he just had to ride it out, trying to make himself get off on this.

He’d only been half hard from this to start with, but he couldn’t keep it up with Eight watching him and fucking him harder, so he stopped trying.  He squeezed his eyes shut and let Eight fuck him, leaning down to put a hand next to Eight so he could hang his head and not worry about Eight seeing his face.  But Eight dragged his other hand back to his cock, and started to jerk Sacha off himself when Sacha took his hand away.  He tried to concentrate on getting hard again, but it was just too much with how bad it hurt and Eight going faster as he got close.  So Sacha just tried to hold still and let him finish so they wouldn’t have to do this all over if Sacha kept Eight from getting off.

And then Eight dragged Sacha down against him as he came, holding Sacha too tight and giving him two more shaky thrusts to drag it out, Eight pressing his nose into Sacha’s hair and his lips to Sacha’s ear and his breath too warm.  

Sacha pulled away from him as soon as Eight was done, his thighs aching.  He tried to lie down next to Eight, only to be pushed away.  Eight made him roll over and lie on his side, and Sacha wanted to snap at him that twice in a row wasn’t part of the deal, but kept his mouth shut because without Eight he’d be on his own again and fuck knew what Two would do with him then.  

So he just took a shaky breath and turned his face down as Eight put an arm around his chest, waiting for Eight to press into him again.

“Shh, baby, it’s okay, it always hurts the first few times, it’ll get better,” Eight said, brushing his hand down Sacha’s side to his leg.  Eight pressed his lips to the back of Sacha’s neck, tracing his fingers out over Sacha’s shaky thigh.  

Then Eight’s hand was on his cock again, and Sacha felt himself get hard in his hand, not so bad now with just dull soreness instead of the burning ache from being fucked.  He ground his jaw and tried to concentrate on Eight’s hand and his warm mouth instead of the dull pain in his whole body.

“Come on, baby, I know you want it,” Eight murmured against him, and Sacha tried to want it this way, tried to let this be good enough because he couldn’t ask for anything else from Eight.  It was too hard, Eight’s hand callused and dry and too tight, but it was good enough, and Sacha got off from it anyway, so he ground his jaw and didn’t whine because it was better than nothing.

At least once he came Eight finally let him be done, wiping his hand on Sacha’s uniform tangled up under them and pulling Sacha to him.  They lay there like that for a minute, and that was almost worth the rest of it with Eight breathing lazily against his shoulder.  Sacha wanted to roll over and press his face into Eight’s neck to just sleep without worrying about getting jumped, but Eight’s arm was heavy over him.  And he was just too tired to move until Eight gave his thigh a light slap.

“You should get out of here, Fifty, almost time for you to get your ass chewed out for peeling potatoes wrong.  How much longer did Two put you on PT for?”

“Forty-seven,” Sacha said quietly, needing Eight to know it.

“What, baby?” Eight mumbled against his shoulder.

“It’s Forty-seven now.  I moved up.”

Eight laughed, chuckling as he dragged lips along the back of Sacha’s neck.  “Whatever you say, baby.  You’re going up pretty quick, won’t be able to keep track of you til you make it all the way up to Six.  But you should get out of here before Two busts you back down to Fifty.”  

Eight pushed him away then, giving Sacha a slap on the ass and a smile as he stood and pulled on pants.  Sacha watched Eight get dressed, hoping he was right that it wouldn’t hurt so much later.  When they were both dressed, Eight pushed him against the wall to kiss, hard and bruising and fast before Eight leaned down to bite his ear.  

He pushed Sacha out in front of him then and turned away to go shoot the shit with the rest of the low numbers who didn’t have their asses ridden for every fucking thing as Sacha left to go peel potatoes.  

“See you later, Fifty,” Eight called back over his shoulder.


	3. Encke

He was pretty, that was for sure, even if he was surly as all fuck when James tried to help him out.  “Come _on_ , Fifty,” James snapped at him a couple days later, shoving Fifty in front of him after dinner, taking him out behind the barracks while everyone else finished up eating.  Two days and Fifty was already a headache, starting fights and getting the shit beaten out of him because he was too dumb to just keep his head down and stay out of trouble.

“The fuck is this?” Fifty asked when he saw where they were going, surly on the edge of defiant as they rounded the back of the barracks, empty and out of view of the rest of camp.

James scuffed his hair, smiling at Fifty’s wary look.  “Told you, we’re gonna work on your shitty left hook.  I’m not gonna just sit there and watch you get your ass kicked everyday because you punch like a fairy.”  Wouldn’t be so pretty if he kept getting black eyes.

Fifty watched him square up, glancing back toward the parade ground and then at James.

“Come on, Fifty, hit me, let’s see what you got,” James teased, holding up the palm of one hand for a target and jabbing little shadow boxing punches at Fifty with the other.  “Don’t got all night, princess,” James said when Fifty just stood there scowling.

Fifty took a half-hearted swing at him, hunching his shoulders when James swung back, pulling it at the last second before he could punch the skinny little shit in the gut.  Fifty unwound just enough to give James a dirty look when the punch didn’t land, throwing another sloppy, poorly aimed punch at James’ palm.

“That all you got?” James laughed as Fifty put more of his weight into it, starting to look frustrated as James blocked his punches easy, even when Fifty stopped aiming for his hands and really started to punch.  

Fifty hissed a little in pain when his knuckles connected solidly with James’ palm.  “My baby sister hits harder than that,” James laughed, Fifty giving him another dirty look.  “Maybe we should put your hair in some cute pigtails til you learn to throw a punch, you little f—mother _fucker_ ,” he spat as Fifty clocked him right in the nose, staggering him back with the sharp pain of it.  James pressed a hand to his throbbing nose, putting a hand on his knees to steady himself, trying to get his breath back past the sharp pain.  Dabbed at it carefully as the stars cleared out of his spinning vision of the ground.  No blood, but he’d be lucky if Fifty hadn’t given him at least a shadow of a black eye.  Have to be more careful of the little shit.

“Fuck, that was a pretty good swing, sweetheart,” James said, straightening, trying not to wince too much as he pressed the sore bridge of his nose.  Fifty had pressed himself up against the wall, watching James with big eyes.  “What you waiting for, get back over here and hit me again,” James snapped.

Fifty shifted his weight, looking like he was thinking about bolting, ducking out around the corner of the building and getting the fuck out of there.  “You’re not mad?” he asked.

“For what?  Doing what I told you?” James snapped.  His own fault for not being more careful, but at least Fifty had finally proven he wasn’t a complete waste of time, some muscle in there to go with the snarling determination to throw himself at anyone who looked at him sideways.  “No, get your ass over here and shut up.”

Fifty didn’t move a muscle, standing there staring so long James thought about going over to grab him.  “Six broke Forty’s nose this morning,” Fifty said finally, just as James shifted his weight to go drag Fifty by the collar and remind him of what he’d asked for.

But that asshole Six; James had listened to him preening over getting first pick of the _girlfriends_ their first day, and had sworn to himself up and down that he wouldn’t get involved in any of that bullshit.  Not until Fifty had asked for it, and James had felt a little bad for him, skinny and pretty and scared shitless in the middle of the night, the half-starved kind of skinny that made him an easy target.

Six and Forty’s arrangement was just like James and Fifty’s, except that Forty hadn’t volunteered for anything, Six had picked him out to have someone breakable and pretty to fuck and make an example of.  Everybody saw how bad Forty got it from Six, and stayed the fuck out of his way, because who the fuck knew what he’d do to someone he didn’t like, if that was him being friendly.

James looked Fifty up and down, tense and ready to bolt out of there, expecting James to set him up.  Fifty wouldn’t ever be a match for James in a fair fight; no wonder he’d fucking dawdled and pulled his punches.  James rubbed his sore face.  “I heard about that,” he said after a while.  “Six is an asshole.  But I’m not.  Get over here and hit me again.”

Fifty dragged himself back, like a dead man walking as he took each step closer and James just watched him, trying to pretend to be patient.  He watched Fifty think about it, glancing at James through his messy bangs, wary and a little feral.  But Fifty finally took one swing, then another, putting more effort into it without James having to goad him.  Not very good form, and not very fast or hard, but he tried at least.

James stopped him after a while, moving to stand beside Fifty and show him how to hold himself.  They mirrored a couple punches, but Fifty was awkward with it, thinking too much and not putting his back into it.  

So James moved behind him, put one hand on his waist and one hand on his bony wrist, to show him how it was done.  “Come on, baby, throw your weight into it.  Here, like this—“

Fifty hissed and twisted as James tried to guide him through it, the skinny little shit tearing his wrist out of James’ hand.  James scowled at him, Fifty putting a hand on his own shoulder and glancing back at James, worried.

“The fuck’s the matter?” James asked, pushing Fifty’s hand away to put his own hand on Fifty’s narrow shoulder.

“Just hurts,” Fifty mumbled as James squeezed.  “Fuck—I don’t know, it hurts, I twisted it or something.”  James frowned down at the top of Fifty’s bent head, thumb against the hard knot in his skinny back. 

That wasn’t the whole truth, not with Two and fuck knew who else to twist it for him, or all the extra hard training Fifty got himself mouthing off too much for his scrawny, already over-worked muscles.  But James couldn’t do much about that, could only watch Fifty’s back when he was there and take care of problems Fifty told him about.  “C’mere, baby,” James said instead, and turned Fifty around to pull the scrawny little shit against his chest.

And no fucking wonder Fifty couldn’t throw a decent punch, carrying tense knots the size of James’ fist up and down his back, not to mention the bruises he had to have.  Fifty had been putting on weight and muscle, eating like a starved thing every meal, but James could still put his hands around Fifty’s waist and his shoulders weren’t much broader, tense with knots and near bruised, with how Fifty hissed.  James shushed him and brushed Fifty’s messy hair down where it tickled his chin, Fifty leaning his head on James’ shoulder, nose pressed hard.

Fifty was cute with playing at dangerous and trying to act tough, but James liked him better like this, tension easing out of him and relaxing a little, little whimpers escaping him as James kneaded the sore spots out, Fifty twisting his hands in James’ tshirt to hang on, needy and a little desperate.  And getting hard as James rubbed the stiffness out of his back.  Fifty leaned into him, fighting to keep his breathing even, trying not to make too much noise.

“Fifty,” James murmured into his ear as Fifty pressed closer, “I can tell what you’re thinking about.”  Fifty startled back, blushing furiously, but James just laughed and pulled him back, putting a hand on Fifty’s ass to grind Fifty’s hard cock against James’ thigh.  “You’re pretty cute when you blush, sweetheart,” James laughed, leaning down to brush his lips across the back of Fifty’s ear as Fifty tried to hide his blush against James’ chest.

Fifty wouldn’t look him in the eye as James tugged them down to sit against the wall of the barracks, too busy blushing as James sat and made Fifty straddle him in the fading light.  But he eased into it as James slid his hands up under Fifty’s shirt, humming absently as he kneaded out the knots between Fifty’s shoulder blades.  Fifty was warm and not so jittery as he’d been standing, leaning his head on James’ shoulder.

And Fifty only made a little noise of protest when James popped the button of his pants, pushing one hand down to cup Fifty’s skinny, perfect ass, pushing the front down with the other enough to get a hand around Fifty’s hard cock.  “What if somebody sees?” Fifty hissed, glancing back towards the parade ground.

“So what if they do?” James said, squeezing Fifty’s ass to keep him in place.  “I’ll take care of it if it’s a problem, and besides, did you think cuddling looked any better?”  Fifty shut up at that, forgetting to scowl as James stroked his cock.

He was pretty fucking cute, breathing heavily against James’ shoulder, shuddering as James nipped little bites to his neck.  James was just as hard, Fifty rocking against him and biting his shoulder to keep from making too much noise, but it was more interesting just then to concentrate on Fifty, so needy, desperately hanging on to James’ shoulders as he got closer, digging his nails in and moaning as James teased his cute ass and squeezed his cock a little too hard.

They came hard like teenagers necking, Fifty into James’ hand and moaning, James just from watching Fifty get off, like he’d never fucked anyone before.  He didn’t mind it, though, not with Fifty shivering against him, mouth warm against James’ neck.  And James wished not for the first time that he could have found Fifty somewhere else, that this could be something other than what it was.

“Don’t you—“ Fifty breathed, sitting back to fumble for the button of James’ fly until James nudged his hands away.

“Nah, sweetheart, I said, you’re cute when you blush,” James said, squeezing Fifty’s cute ass one more time before they got up.  “That’s good enough for tonight.”

* * *

James went out of his way to make Fifty blush, catching his eye across mess and in the showers to wink at him, since Fifty wasn’t very good at hiding his shy smiles behind a scowl.  James didn’t bother to hide all the little bruises and bite marks Fifty left across his shoulders, half just to show off to all the other low numbers, and half because he liked the reminder of it himself, especially when he caught Fifty looking in the showers.  He was prideful of it, proud of Fifty pulling himself up off the bottom and getting stronger, proud that Fifty liked getting fucked, and he liked rubbing it in all the other low numbers’ faces.

It was a pretty good game for the first few weeks, not much different than flirting in high school, but of course it was nothing so safe and innocent as school.  And pride always went before the fall.

“Hope you enjoyed the honeymoon, brother,” Six said one morning in the showers, leaning against James’ locker as he dressed.  James glared at him, following Six’s look at Fifty with the other high numbers on the other end of the locker room, huddled together for safety.  “Ten and Twelve were gonna ruin your little date the other night, and I took it on myself to talk them out of that.  But I don’t do favors for nothing.”


	4. Forty-Four

**Cain**

Eight could have been better.  Or, Eight was fine, but it was all the other assholes Sacha had to get on his knees for because Eight said so, even though that hadn’t been part of the deal.  The deal had been to keep from getting passed around like Forty-nine.  

Who was Fifty now, not looking at anyone and due to wash out because he didn’t put up a fight anymore for anyone.  Sacha thought about fucking him, just to see what it was like, just to see why everyone else got off on it while he was stuck feeling achy and sore most days.  But Sacha had just clawed his way out of the bottom five guaranteed to get cut; with his luck Forty-nine would decide to put up a fight and Sacha would just be back down where he’d started.

So he did what Eight told him and blew who Eight told him, just letting it happen and trying not to think about it.  He’d sucked plenty of cock for plenty of reasons; for money to get his sister to the clinic after she got knocked up; for a place to stay that wasn’t the foster home; for barely enough liquor to get wasted on.  

He could suck cock, it just wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal to do it for anyone but Eight.

But Eight had favors to return, and said that it was time for Sacha to pull his weight and do some favors.  Sacha had thought the fucking was the favor, had thought that getting fucked by just Eight was supposed to be good enough, but Eight said that if he did it once he wouldn’t have to do it again.

Eight said that the second and third time he made Sacha do it too, but Six covered Eight’s ass, and told Eight how it was going to be, so neither of them had a choice in it.  If Eight didn’t have Six backing him up, he’d slide down the rankings and take Sacha with him.  He’d gotten fucked by Eight to get off the bottom; he could suck a couple cocks to keep from going back there.

There were two of them this time, or maybe three, didn’t really matter because all cock tasted the same.  Eight had said it would only be Six, but then Nine and Eleven showed up too.  Sacha choked on one of them, Six or Nine or even Eight, didn’t really matter, he just had to get the fucker off as fast as possible so Eight would let him be done.

He gagged as the asshole finally came, still not used to doing this for anyone but Eight, and he couldn’t swallow quick enough to keep from getting come on his face and his jacket.  One of the other fuckers laughed as this one jerked Sacha’s head back by the hair so he could finish coming over Sacha’s face, and then it didn’t matter anyway whether he could swallow or not.  

But at least it was done, and Sacha sat back to get his breath as the last one tucked himself away, the other ones murmuring something to Eight as they started to leave.  Sacha ground his jaw and didn’t look at anyone as he sat there, his face hot.

“Come on,” Eight said, helping him up, gathering him up.  “Come on, Fifty.  It’s done, let’s get you out of here.” 

Sacha let himself be pulled up, leaning against Eight, his jaw and his knees aching.  He didn’t correct Eight, even though he was Forty-four now, because Eight had just laughed at him last time.  “Was that—was that good enough?” he said instead, coughing, his throat raw from being forced to swallow.  

Eight pressed him against his chest, blunt fingers stroking the back of his neck, making Sacha’s scalp tingle where one of the fuckers had pulled his hair too hard.  “Yeah, baby, you did good.”

Sacha turned his face up for a kiss, needing Eight’s mouth on him even if his neck ached and his mouth felt bruised and mashed already.  Eight turned his face away, though, pushing him away.  Sacha swallowed against the bitter taste of come in his mouth and let Eight pull him out of the room.

Eight wouldn’t kiss him, pushing him away when they were back in the empty barracks and Sacha tried again.  But he did push Sacha down on his knees and let him blow him, so that was good enough.  Eight stroked his hair and didn’t pull, gentle after having his nose crushed and being gagged by those other fuckers.  Sacha tried to drag it out, to show Eight he could do it better just for him.  

Tried to tell himself that if he did good enough, Eight wouldn’t make him blow anyone else again.

Eight held Sacha’s head down as he came, though, and it was all he could do to just swallow and try not to let Eight feel him gag too badly.  Eight pulled him up to lay against his chest afterwards but didn’t try to get him off.  No time for it anyway, just a few minutes before they had to be out for drill.  Sacha hadn’t gotten hard from any of it, but Eight still wouldn’t even kiss him.  No time to get a drink of water before drill, so Sacha did pushups in the drizzling rain, Two barking at him and the taste of Eight and the rest of them mixed together bitter in his mouth.

This wasn’t the fucking deal he’d signed up for, but then neither was the military.  Sacha couldn’t decide if not getting sent back was worth this, but pushed that thought away because there was nothing and no one to go back to anyway.


	5. Cain: Forty

**Cain**

Eight came in while Sacha was polishing Two’s boots in the empty barracks, thinking about how much better they’d smell if he just pissed in them.  He should have kept his fucking mouth shut the first day, but what the fuck else was he supposed to do when the sergeant called him a gypsy whore’s bastard.  Still worth it though.

“Come on, baby, get your bag packed, I got us passes for leave this week,” Eight said, flipping open Sacha’s mostly-empty footlocker.

Sacha frowned, but he didn’t put the boot down.  He had shit to get done so Two wouldn’t chew him out and make him do more pushups.  And except for the bottle of vodka he’d blown Fifteen for, there wasn’t anything in his footlocker that mattered enough to hide from Eight anyway.  “Why?” Sacha asked, watching Eight pull his duffel out, starting to stuff clothes into it.

“Because it’ll be a good time.  I’m renting us a car and everything.  Come on, get your shit, we can leave as soon as we’re ready, I got it all planned out.”

“Who’s us?” Sacha asked suspiciously, not interested in getting dragged off and passed around by Six and Eleven and Eight all together for a whole week.

“Fuck, you and me, Fifty,” Eight said, even though he knew it was Forty now.  Sacha had just stopped trying to correct him.  Not worth getting laughed at every time.

“Just you and me.”

“ _Yes_ , you going deaf from Two chewing you out too much?  Maybe if you spent more time doing what you were told and less time picking fights he wouldn’t ride your ass so hard.”  Like Eight was one to talk, he’d gone from Twenty to Eight their first week and stayed there because he picked fights all the time.  But he always won, and Sacha didn’t.

“Fuck you,” Sacha mumbled.

“The fuck is this?” Eight said, holding up the book Natasha had given him when he left, the tattered copy she’d read to him after babushka kicked them out.

Sacha finally put the boot down and got up to take it from him.  “Nothing, just a book my sister gave me,” he said, reaching for it. 

“Anna Karenina,” Eight sounded out, keeping it away from him for just a second before giving it back.  Sacha tucked it back down safe next to the bottle of vodka and started to pull out changes of clothes to put in his duffel.  “Any good?” Eight asked, laying back on Sacha’s bunk.  He kicked his dirty boots up on the blanket so Sacha would have to remake the bed before they left, in order to not have Two pull his leave at the last second.

“Don’t know, never read it,” Sacha lied, even though they’d sat in foster homes and shelters and read it backwards and forwards together until his sister got her own shitty apartment.  “Just something my sister gave me for the trip here.”

Eight tossed a pair of Sacha’s socks up and down, toss and catch, thoughtful.  “Never knew you had a sister,” he said.

“You don’t know a fucking thing about me,” Sacha mumbled, putting an extra couple shirts in his bag, trying to lay them in neatly so they wouldn’t wrinkle.  Even if Eight knew exactly enough about him to make him come panting hard, Eight didn’t know anything about him.

Eight sat up then, tossing the socks at him, and Sacha got hit in the side of the face with them because he wasn’t a fast enough catch.  He glared as Eight came around the bed to grab the book out of his footlocker and stuff it in Sacha’s bag.  “Guess I don’t, but maybe we’ll have to fix that.  Come on, baby, you don’t need that many clothes, not like you’re going to be wearing much anyway,” Eight said, and pulled him out of the barracks.

 

* * *

 

 

Eight had gotten a car, and it was just them.  Sacha didn’t really pay attention to where Eight drove, just glad to have the camp and Two’s ugly face behind him.  No fucking pushups and no potatoes to peel for an entire week was the best fucking news he’d gotten since getting his orders to ship out for basic, even if it meant getting fucked by Eight every night for a week.  Eight wasn’t so bad.  He could have been a bastard like Six, and the last couple times hadn’t been so bad as the first few.

They sat on the one bed at the hotel that night eating greasy takeout, the place small and dingy but clean.  Eight seemed pretty fucking pleased with himself, buying a case of beer as they drove into town and spreading out the map on the bed as soon as they got there.  Sacha kicked his boots off and just started in on the food, letting Eight go on about fucking waterfalls and museums.  

Didn’t fucking matter what they did during the day if Eight had only dragged him along to have someone to fuck at night.

At least Eight let him eat in peace, and opened a second beer for him when Sacha finished his first, even though Eight was only half done with his and still going on about bridges or some fuck to go see.  

Sacha was getting his clothes for the next day laid out while Eight finished his food, trying to stay out of Eight’s space but there was no room for it.  Eight drank his beer and watched Sacha refold all the clothes Eight had just stuffed in there, wrinkled and balled up.  

And then the fucking book.  He had to take it out to get the rest of his clothes out to fold, but there was no place safe for it.  He held it in his hand for a second, thinking, until he realized Eight was holding his hand out for it.

Sacha hesitated, but gave it to him.  It was just a book, didn’t mean anything.  He finished folding his clothes as Eight flipped through it.

“Who’s this?  Girlfriend?” Eight asked after a while, and Sacha looked back to see him looking down at a photo of a girl caught between pages.  Eight picked it up, looking at it, turning it back and forth in the light.

“Fuck you, give it back.  It’s no one,” Sacha said, snatching it back as Eight held it out.

“Calm the fuck down, baby, I was only teasing,” Eight said.  “She’s pretty, you write to her?”

Sacha frowned down at it, wishing he’d left it at his sister’s place with the picture of their mother, but Natasha had snuck it into the book and now he had to keep it safe.  “Just fuck off, she’s not a girlfriend, just my sister.”

“The one that gave you this,” Eight said, holding out the book.

He glared up at Eight then, looking for the asshole to laugh at him, but Eight just watched him with his appraising look.  Measuring, like when he weighed someone up for a fight.  “Yeah,” Sacha admitted finally, taking the book back from Eight.  He slipped the photo back in it and put it back safe in his bag, hoping Eight would just drop it.

He’d almost thought Eight would drop it, letting Sacha settle back next to him on the bed and drink in silence for a little bit, Eight finishing his dinner and clearing the takeout containers away.  Came back to the bed and started clearing the maps away while Sacha sat there, because what the hell else did they have to do together besides fuck.

“You got her address?” Eight asked, sitting back down.  “We’ll make sure to grab some postcards for her tomorrow.  Get one for your momma too.”

“Don’t need any fucking postcards,” Sacha mumbled, taking a swig of his beer.  Stared at the grey carpet and wished Eight would just fuck him and get it over with.

“Fifty, you are never going to make it out of basic if you don’t quit mumbling and getting offended over everything,” Eight said, taking a slow swipe at his head, scuffing Sacha’s hair.  “We’ll get your momma a postcard tomorrow and maybe you can lighten the fuck up.”

“Just leave it,” Sacha snapped, his face getting hot.  “My mother doesn’t need a fucking postcard, she’s fucking dead.”

Eight stared at him, and Sacha closed his eyes and turned his face away so it wouldn’t hurt so much when he got slapped.

“What happened to her?” Eight asked after a while.  No slap.  Sacha looked back at him out of the corner of his eye.

Eight just watched him, leaning back against the headboard, drinking his beer.

“She, uh,” Sacha started, glancing down and swallowing against how tight his throat suddenly felt.  He’d never told anyone this.  Never even talked about it with his sister after she’d told him, not with their grandmother, not with the social worker.  “She fell down the stairs,” he finally managed.

“People don’t die from falling down the stairs, baby,” Eight said, and Sacha couldn’t tell what he meant, so he took another drink of his beer, maybe too much.  He felt lightheaded and too warm, not sure what Eight wanted from him with this.

But Eight just watched him, just waited, didn’t say anything, so Sacha said it.  No reason not to; didn’t mean anything to him anymore, not a part of his life anymore even if his throat hurt just talking about it.  “She was pregnant, she bled out.  Sister found her after school.”

“No one home when it happened?”

“Our dad.”

Eight let that hang there for a while, taking a drink of his beer and watching Sacha.  He didn’t say anything and Sacha looked away, tracing out the blotchy flowers on the bedspread, faded pinks and ugly greens washed out ten years ago.  

“That’s pretty fucked up,” Eight said after a while.  “Your sister still there?”

“Had her own place for a while.  Lives with a boyfriend sometimes, when she doesn’t have any money.  Don’t know where now.”

Eight pulled Sacha towards him then, putting an arm around his shoulders.  Sacha didn’t say anything, swore he wouldn’t cry this time when Eight fucked him, even if he sat there huddled up against Eight while they finished their beers in silence.

He let Eight push his jacket off him after a while and leaned into him after Eight got them both undressed, but Eight just pushed him away when he tried to kiss.  

Not one of those times, just fast and rough tonight.  

Sacha took a couple deep breaths as Eight leaned over him to turn the lights out, trying to swallow away the knot in his throat so he wouldn’t choke later.  Eight hated when he gagged even if some of the other bastards fucking loved it.

Eight lay back down and let Sacha lean over him to put his mouth and hand on Eight’s thigh, even if he couldn’t make himself suck cock yet, his mouth too dry.  Eight just watched him in the half dark of the yellow light slanting in from the parking lot, watched Sacha make himself work up to it.

Eight put a hand on Sacha’s cheek, making Sacha look up at him, and he realized how hot his face was.  “Baby, you don’t have to,” Eight said, rubbing his thumb over Sacha’s dry lips.

Sacha swallowed, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong, if he’d gone too slow, wondering if Eight would just get rid of him as soon as they got back for ruining the week of leave with whining.  “You don’t want me to?” Sacha asked, his voice rough.  Not sure what else Eight would want from him.

“No, baby, just lie down,” Eight said.  He pulled Sacha up against him, wrapping an arm around him as Sacha lay against his chest.  Eight didn’t say anything else, just traced circles on Sacha’s back with his fingers.  He fell asleep after a while, so Sacha figured it must be alright for him to sleep too.  Even if it was the first time they’d been in a bed together and just slept instead of fucked.


	6. Cain: Forty

**Cain**

Eight hauled him out of bed too early the next morning, two hours later than they would have had drill but still too fucking early if this was supposed to be leave.  Sacha just glared at him over the shitty hotel coffee Eight brought up from the lobby and let Eight push him out the door to the car.

Didn’t know why they had to get up so fucking early just for Eight to pull into a little shopping center before they even left town.

“Wait here,” Eight said, bounding out of the car.  Sacha slouched in his seat and glared after him, the sun too bright and Eight too fucking happy about this whole fucking thing.  Watched him swing into a drugstore and come out with nothing, then a liquor store and a tobacco shop.  Eight came back to the car with cartons of cigarettes, five or six, throwing them in the back of the car as he got in.  He set a paper bag with a couple handles of liquor next to them.

“What the fuck is all that for?” Sacha asked, looking back at the bags.  The liquor they’d drink, but no way Eight could smoke all that by himself.  

“Six,” Eight said, turning over the engine.

“Oh.”  Sacha crossed his arms and looked at his boots as Eight put the car in gear and backed it out.  Eight wasn’t ever so bad by himself, but he let Six push him around too much.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that, Fifty, it’s get him smokes or have you blow him again, it’s all the same to him.  If you’d rather just spend the rest of basic on your knees, you could have said so and saved all my money.”

Sacha flushed but glared out the window.  “Fuck you.”

“Later, baby.  Now quit your bitching and light me a smoke.  Put a couple packs in your bag if you want any.”

“Don’t smoke,” Sacha said, opening a pack and pushing in the car’s cigarette lighter.  He took a couple puffs on Eight’s cigarette as he got it lit, though, only barely managing to not cough.  Eight watched him out of the corner of his eye as he drove, but didn’t say anything.

Sacha passed him the cigarette and watched him smoke, the smell of it filling the car even though Eight tried to hang it out the window.  He was a little buzzed from his couple of puffs, just enough to take the edge off everything and make Eight’s little vacation seem like not such a fucking bad idea in the first place.  

Would have been good to have something to dull the harsh edges the first couple weeks of basic.

Sacha kicked his feet up on the dash and pulled another cigarette out of the open pack.  “Not too fast at first, baby,” Eight said, and Sacha glared at him, determined not to cough now.  Eight didn’t laugh or say anything else, though, just watched Sacha and the road as Sacha smoked slow and finally ground out the cigarette halfway through because he was starting to feel green.

So he kicked back in the passenger seat and dozed, catching up on all the sleep he’d been missing the first few weeks of basic, rolled out of bed too early for drill or not able to sleep from being too sore from pushups and fights and being fucked.  Too tired to care when he woke up a couple times with Eight’s arm across the back of his seat or Eight’s hand resting on his thigh.  Didn’t matter as long as Eight let him sleep.  Eight wasn’t so bad on his own.

Sacha woke up with Eight’s hand still warm on his thigh, sometime around midmorning, still driving, still in the middle of fucking nowhere, winding roads and and too many trees and fucking hills.  He got another cigarette lit just for something to do, this one not so rough as the first.  

Didn’t make it very far into this one either, though, Eight giving him a look sideways and pulling off into a scenic overlook.  Sacha smoked as Eight pulled down a short drive, parking in an empty gravel lot barely visible from the road.

Sacha just watched him come around the car and open the passenger door, letting himself be pulled out.  Eight pushed him towards the overlook, just a bunch of fucking trees down a valley and some clouds, pulling Sacha’s cigarette out of his mouth and grinding it out.  Asshole just smiled at Sacha’s glare and spun them around, putting his arm over Sacha’s shoulders and fishing a little disposable camera out of his pocket.

“Come on, baby, pretend like you got laid this morning,” Eight said, ducking in to kiss Sacha’s ear quick.  Sacha tried to glare at him but couldn’t help a half smile as Eight held the camera out in front of them and took a picture.  Sleeping for the first time in weeks was better than getting laid anyway.  “You just need to lighten up, Fifty, you take everything too serious,” Eight said, putting the camera away and walking them back to the car with his arm still over Sacha’s shoulders.

Eight reached past him to open the passenger door and Sacha caught him by the jacket.  Tilted his face up to kiss, just to see where they were, but Eight just nudged him away, leaning away from him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Sacha snapped, frustrated with getting dragged out to see waterfalls and passed around to Six and Eleven with no goddamn sense to it.  Either one he could have managed but not Eight switching back and forth when it suited him.  Eight grabbed for him, but Sacha pushed away from him.  “Why’d you drag me out for all this bullshit if I’m good enough to suck cock but not kiss?”

There was a tense silence as Eight looked him up and down, weighing how easy it would be to just deck him.  “You fucking punched me in the mouth the first time,” Eight said slowly, his hand on the door and looking at Sacha like he was an idiot.  “Thought you just wanted to get fucked without the rest of it, so I wasn’t going to make you do it if you didn’t want to.”

Sacha scowled at the ground, Eight glaring at him.  He hadn’t forgotten that, but he hadn’t expected Eight to care, not will all his little quick kisses and trying to make like they were friends.  “That was different,” Sacha said finally, dragging a hand through his hair so he wouldn’t have to look at Eight.

“Was it,” Eight said with a laugh, and Sacha would have glared at him if Eight didn’t catch him off guard, ducking in and forcing Sacha’s mouth open with a quick bite and hot tongue, his smell cutting through the cigarette smoke on both of them.

Eight pushed him hard back against the hood of the car then, glancing up at the drive down to the overlook once before he spun Sacha and put a hand on his shoulder to bend him over.

“Fuck, out here?  What if someone—“

Eight cut him off with a rough hand down his pants and hot tongue on his ear.  “Quit your bitching and we’ll do it quick.  It’ll be different this time,” Eight said, and started tugging Sacha’s pants down.  

There was a hurried pause as Eight pinned him up against the car with one knee, fishing something out of his pocket as Sacha looked in the direction of the road.  Anyone would have to turn into the overlook to see them, but as soon as they did they’d get a fucking show.

Sacha had just opened his mouth to tell Eight to hurry the fuck up when he was cut off with cold, slick fingers pushed into him, warm air on bare skin making his skin prickle as Eight worked his fingers in and out.  Barely any time to think about it though, the cold lube warmed up with Eight’s fingers replaced by his cock.

And, fuck, was it different this time, Eight easing into him slow and smooth, hot pressure but no pain.  Sacha arched his back into it, his cock getting harder the deeper Eight pushed.  

He could hear Eight’s breathing over the wind in the trees, quicker as Sacha pushed back against him to do this faster, Eight’s blunt fingers digging into his thighs.  

Eight pulled out of him suddenly, leaving him cold and empty, but only for a second because Eight picked him up and spun him, flipping Sacha on his back and pushing back into him in one motion.  Sacha bit his lip to keep from making a noise, not that there was much of a point in trying to keep from getting caught out here where anyone who drove up could see.  

His hands twitched, wanting to grab after Eight and pull him closer, or jerk himself off so it wouldn’t look like he was getting off just from being fucked, but he couldn’t do either, too aware of Eight watching him laid out on his back.  First time there hadn’t been any pain, just long slow strokes making his cock throb harder every time.

“Do it,” Eight breathed, and Sacha finally opened his eyes to Eight leaning over him.  “Come on, baby, make yourself come for me.”  Sacha ground his teeth but he did it, so close anyway but laid out open and exposed.  Eight slid in and out of him lazily, breathing slow and looking down to see himself fucking Sacha.

Eight teased him with it, speeding up as Sacha did, so that if he wanted to get fucked harder he had to stroke himself faster.  He was finally so close he couldn’t fucking care, though, spread open wider every stroke with his head tilted back on the warm car hood as he came, Eight pressing his knees down to fuck him harder.  

Sacha shuddered as Eight finally came into him with a sharp gasp, silhouetted against the sky as he leaned over Sacha, the hot pulsing as he came making Sacha shudder again.  He closed his eyes as Eight pulled out of him, trying to catch his breath.

“You okay, Fifty?  That too rough?”

“What?” Sacha asked, still floating somewhere.  Eight leaned over him, frowning.

“I said, you okay?”

Sacha didn’t say anything, just reached up to pull Eight down to him.  Eight was stiff at first but eased into it, letting Sacha push his tongue into Eight’s mouth, feeling clumsy and stupid.

“That was pretty good,” Sacha breathed after, not caring that Eight laughed as he pulled him up because they were kissing again and it was too good to care.  Eight put them both back together as Sacha leaned against him, biting Eight’s lip when he tried to pull away and getting a slap on the ass as Eight pushed him to the car.

Sacha slept that off as Eight pulled the car back to the road, smoking when he woke up and watching Eight drive.  

They fucked again as soon as Eight got them checked into the hotel, Sacha pushing him up against the door as it closed, Eight biting his ear as he pushed Sacha’s clothes off him.  

They would have fucked up against the wall, right next to the open window, Sacha practically moaning for it already if Eight hadn’t thrown him on the bed.  Took too fucking long to close the curtains, Sacha stripped naked and pawing through Eight’s jacket for the lube until Eight came back and did it for him.  It was fast and rough, Eight giving him bruising finger marks on his thighs as Sacha rode him and liked it, but the only soreness was in his thighs and back after as he collapsed over Eight, like after a good run.

He was most of the way to sleep when he realized Eight had fished the camera out again.  Eight held the camera up above them, Sacha twisting sleepily against him.

“Hope you’re happy, that’ll just be a picture of your ass since you bumped me,” Eight said, pushing him off.  Sacha pushed himself up just enough to see how pissed Eight was, but just got one of Eight’s sideways half smiles instead.  He sat up and leaned against the headboard as Eight poured a couple fingers of shitty whiskey into a plastic hotel cup.

Sacha sighed, half asleep again and pleasantly boneless past the soreness.  

“Told you it’d get better,” Eight said, leaning back next to him.  Sacha punched him in the arm and took Eight’s whiskey from him, knocking it back.  

Eight laughed and poured them both more whiskey, and it was a pretty fucking good night.

Basic wasn’t so bad after that, another leave to Eight’s aunt’s place and a couple nights out getting drunk together, the only fast blowjobs Sacha had to do for Eight and for One.


	7. Encke

**Encke**

“What you want to be introduced as?” James asked, shutting the car door in Aunt Morgan’s driveway.

Fifty frowned across the roof of the car at him.  “Fuck, I don’t know, tell her whatever you want,” he said, scowling down at the pavement and shouldering his duffel.

James rounded the car and scuffed Fifty’s hair.  Always taking everything so fucking seriously.  “You want me to just tell her Fifty’s your real name?” he said, just to tease Fifty, even though he was somewhere in the thirties now, bouncing numbers too fast to keep track of.

Fifty pushed him away, still frowning at the ground.  “Fuck you.  It’s Sacha,” he mumbled, then glanced up at James defiantly, squaring his jaw.  Flushed a little, gearing for a fight.  “It’s not a girl’s name.”

James just laughed at him and pulled him to the house, so Morgan could fuss over him and how skinny he was and how serious and handsome he was.  Kissed him quick before the front door opened, just to make Fifty blush brighter.

* * *

“Wanna take a shower before dinner?” James asked, throwing Fifty’s shit up on the top bunk after.  Tiny room, meant for four little boys in two bunk beds, but Aunt Morgan had cleared them all out for the weekend so the big boys could have a room to themselves for a couple days.  The boys wouldn’t mind, having a slumber party for the weekend camped out on the living room floor.

“I’m good, took a shower before we left,” Fifty said, pulling his duffel down with a little frown.  He glanced around the little room, looking for somewhere to unpack and refold his clothes.  Fussy little shit, had to fix his hair every time after they fucked and make sure none of his clothes had gotten wrinkled in the duffel.

James watched him push the duffel back up and stand on the rungs of the ladder, so he could open it up on the top bunk and unfold his clothes onto the mattress up there.

“Didn’t ask if you needed it, baby, asked if you wanted to take a shower,” James said, hooking an arm around Fifty’s skinny waist and pressing against him.

Fifty twisted against him, trying to pull away, but James kept him pinned on the ladder, grabbing Fifty’s skinny ass.  “Your foster mom’s downstairs, you want to get kicked out?” Fifty hissed, glancing at the door.

James just laughed, mouthing the veins of Sacha’s neck, kissing his thready pulse, always too jumpy and high strung.  “The fuck would she care?  She’s known I fuck guys since I landed here, why you think she gave us a room to ourselves?  Come on, kids won’t be home from school til four, we got an hour if you quit bitching,” James said, untucking Fifty’s shirt and running his fingers over the warm skin of his belly.

Fifty twisted again, though, turning to stand backwards on the ladder and lean away from him as much as he could, watching him warily.  “She really doesn’t care who you fuck?  You never got kicked out of anywhere?”

“Nah, baby, what you so worried about?” James said, trying to lean in to kiss Fifty’s neck and calm him down, but Fifty just twisted away from him, frowning.  

“Last couple foster homes kicked Tasha and me out, said they wouldn’t take fags.”  Fifty shrugged, ducking his head, not saying something.  “So we took off as soon as Tasha turned eighteen.”

“What were you, like thirteen?” James asked, trying to remember how old Fifty had said his sister was.  “How the fuck’d you get by?”

Fifty took a couple of slow breaths, avoiding something.  “She got a job cleaning at a hotel, when there was work, and I—”  Fifty cut himself off, just shrugged.

“You sucked cock for money,” James said, not managing to keep the disgust out of his voice, finally realizing why Fifty was so good at giving head.

Fifty wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “Or for someplace to sleep that wasn’t the homeless shelter,” he said, like that made it any better.  “I just—things were bad, I just—sometimes money was tight and I couldn’t get a job.”  Fifty licked his lips, looking down and leaning away.  “Didn’t want to go back to foster care and get the shit beaten out of me or sent to therapy for not wanting to fuck girls, it was the only way to stay out of foster care.  Thought they were all like that.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, why didn’t you tell your fucking social worker?”  James’ social worker Rita would never have fucking stood for that, had raised hell the one time his drunk uncle had tried to get custody of him after Morgan’s adoption papers went through.  Rita would never have fucking stood for her kids getting sent to straight therapy or kicked out.

Fifty just shrugged, hunching his shoulders, looking like a kicked dog.  “Didn’t believe us.  Social worker told Tasha she was crazy when the fucker at one place felt her up, said we were just trying to game the system.  Said if we quit fucking up at school then he’d be able to find us a foster family that’d take us, but no one wanted gypsy trash.  Said he was sick of having us lie to his face about good families.  Quit trying after the third time.”

He looked Fifty up and down, head down and not meeting his eye like when he was trying to hide something.  Fifty never told the whole truth unless someone made him, lying out of both sides of his mouth when he could and only telling half truths when he thought he’d get caught.  

“Did you lie about it?” James asked slowly, because everyone had heard about how fucking crazy gypsies were and the couple of tsygan kids Morgan had taken once had been completely fucked in the head.

“The fuck do you think?” Fifty snapped, pushing away from him then, shoving James away to get off the ladder of the bunkbed.  He scrubbed a hand through his hair, turning his back with his shoulders still hunched, waiting to get slapped around.

“Well fucking excuse me, baby, it just doesn’t make any goddamn sense that he wouldn’t believe you if he didn’t have a good goddamn reason, that’s not what social workers are supposed do,” James said.

Fifty just started yanking his shirt off with shaking hands, still looking at the floor, face turned away.  “Yeah, it was all a fucking lie, we fucking made all of it up to get out of foster care because homeless shelters were so much fucking better.  Were you gonna fuck me or just stand there talking all night?” Fifty demanded, throwing his shirt to crumple in the corner, kicking his boots away.  Stood there with his head down and back turned, fumbling with his fly.

“Calm the fuck down, I was only asking.”  James watched his back, wondering how much fucked up bullshit he’d gotten himself into when he’d only thought that first night was going to be a quick fuck and knocking some sense into the crazy little shit.  “Any of it true?” he tried, wanting to believe Fifty if he needed it.

Fifty took a deep breath, his shoulders hunched.  Took a couple of deep breaths.  “Just forget it, it’s all just a fucking sob story.  None of it’s true,” he said finally.

James pulled Fifty against his chest, stroking the back of his neck until Fifty eased into it just a little, still stiff but not shaking so bad.  “Just be fucking honest with people, Fifty, you don’t have to fucking do this.  Come on, let’s take a shower and calm you down.”

Fifty let himself be led to the bathroom, glancing down the stairs nervously until James shoved him in and shut the door, locking it behind them in case it made Fifty feel any better about getting caught, not that Morgan would ever fucking care.  Especially not with this one, smitten with the pictures he’d sent from that last leave, fawning over Fifty more than she had over any of the other skinny assed boys James brought home to meet her.

He didn’t say a goddamn thing, letting himself be pushed into the shower and dropping to his knees before James could stop him, getting him hard and swallowing him fast.  Fifty knew exactly what he was doing, good at this even if he’d been a virgin the first night.

Fifty flicked his tongue, making James’ knees go weak even if he didn’t want to think about where Fifty had learned to do it, didn’t want to think about him down on his knees for rent money or a place to stay.  Didn’t want to think about that Fifty was down on his knees for the same fucking reason right then, to have someone watch his back and keep him from getting fucked by every asshole meaner than him in the squad.

Better to lean back against the wall and let Fifty use his pretty mouth like it was his own idea, since James did better by him than that asshole Six or anyone else would have done by him.  Just because it had started out as a deal that first night didn’t mean James was anything like those other fuckers.  He did the best by Fifty he could.  

Fifty swallowed as he came, mouth like an angel and eyes like a whore, watching him come and starting to stroke himself still kneeling.  

James pulled him up, pushing Fifty’s hand away and starting to jerk him hard and fast, the way Fifty liked it.  Or at least the way that made Fifty come hardest and moan loudest, James never could tell what he liked, always shutting down when things got too personal.

“Could you—just once, could you—“ Fifty panted, clinging to him, biting his lip.

James leaned in to bite his ear, pressing Fifty against the cold wall and stroking him harder.  Fifty leaned his forehead against James’ shoulder, desperately trying to hold himself up as he got closer.  “You want me to suck your cock, baby?” he asked, trying not to laugh when Fifty moaned through his teeth and nodded his head against James’ shoulder.  Getting bolder, but still begging like a blushing virgin.

He kissed Fifty’s neck just below his new earring, flicking it just a little to make Fifty hiss, since the crazy little fuck got off on pain.  He’d promised to take Fifty out to do it next leave, but the little shit had been too impatient, got it done with a hot needle by that fuckup Thirty-six instead of waiting like he was told.  “I don’t really do that, baby, but the second you get in the top ten I’ll show you a good time, how about that?” James said.  Once or twice fucking around in high school had been enough to know he didn’t like the taste of it, didn’t need to try it again to know that.

Fifty moaned, pressing his mouth to James’ shoulder and trying to bite a dark bruise.  James dug his fingers into Fifty’s skinny ass, rolling the tip of Fifty’s cock under his palm and jerking him in short sharp strokes, getting hard again with watching how bad Fifty wanted it.  

Tried not to feel too guilty about making a promise he’d never have to keep, since Fifty would never make it out of the bottom half anyway, not with the sergeant out for him since the first day.  Two would find some way to knock him back to the bottom, even if it was looking more likely that Fifty would claw his way into the top half, hitting Thirty-two or three right before they’d left for the weekend.  Two wouldn’t let it happen, and like fuck James was going to pick a fight with the sergeant over a skinny piece of ass.

But Fifty knew that just as well as James did, so it wasn’t exactly a lie.

Fifty came hard into his hand, and James could have fucked him then against the wall with how hard it made him having Fifty cling to him shaky kneed from just a good handjob, but Fifty moaned sleepily, worn out from all the goddamn laps they’d run in the last week.  James hauled him out of the shower and toweled him off, kissing little beads of water off his collar bone as Fifty caught his breath, fawning after him as James pulled him back to the bedroom.

James pulled on pajama bottoms and threw himself down on the bottom bunk, letting his back pop.  Good long weekend of leave with real food, hot showers and a couple of quick fucks were everything he could have asked for, last chance for leave before the end of basic and getting shipped out.  

One last good time with Fifty before things got serious, the last couple of weeks when everyone’s final rankings got sorted and set where they’d get stationed out to.  With Fifty at the bottom and him at the top, they’d get stationed out and never see each other again.  Should never have brought Fifty home to meet Morgan so she wouldn’t have to fret over whatever happened to him, but it’d be a good weekend anyway.

Fifty stood there in the middle of the little room, looking back and forth between him and the other beds.  James propped his head up a little to look at him.

“What’s the problem, baby?”

Fifty glanced up at the bunk bed where James had thrown his shit.  “Where’m I sleeping?” he asked, and asking about more than that, James could hear it.  Should never have brought him home, just made everything more complicated than it had to be.  Should have just let things stay a simple deal between them and left it at a quick fuck like it had been that first night.  Just should have let Fifty do what he was good at instead of getting pulled into all his bullshit with his fucked up family.

“Where ever you want, baby, pick where you want,” James said, laying back and closing his eyes.  No point in making Fifty feel like he had to put out all weekend if all he wanted to do was sleep.

The narrow bed dipped as Fifty crawled in next to him, pressed to the edge of the bed and curled in on himself like he expected to be told to get out.  James pushed himself to the wall to make more room and threw an arm over Fifty, pulling him closer.  James rubbed little circles with his thumb on Fifty’s back until the tension eased out of him and they both started to drift.

“James?  Sacha?”  Aunt Morgan yelled up the stairs.  “If you boys want beer with dinner you’ll have to run down to the liquor store, I forgot to pick it up.  Dinner’s at six.”

James smoothed Fifty’s damp hair down, watching him scowl in his sleep, wondering when everything had gotten so fucking complicated.


	8. Encke

**Encke**

**  
**

“Amen.”

“James, pass the—“

“Eli, get your elbows off the table—“

“He’s not staying on his side!”

“Why’d you have to put beans in it?”

“At school today Maggie said—“

“Who wants more?”

“I want pie.”

“You get pie when you finish what’s on your plate.  James, help Sean with—“ 

Fifty hunched over his plate, eyes down and one hand on the table curled around his plate, worse than he was in mess where you had to keep an eye out for the guy next to you or get your dinner roll swiped.  James juggled helping the little ones nearest to him with their dinner, keeping half an eye on Fifty next to him, on edge in the crowded kitchen.  

Morgan caught his eye and raised an eyebrow at Fifty, not looking at anybody and trying to lean towards James without looking like he was doing it.  James let him eat in peace, too busy anyway with trying not to get noodles dumped in his lap until the kitchen started to clear out, the little ones excusing themselves til pie came out.

He nudged Fifty with his elbow, finally getting to his own dinner with Fifty pushing a last couple noodles around his plate, trying to look like he was still eating even though he’d finished before everyone else, bolting his dinner fast like he was afraid someone was going to take it away from him.  “You ok, Fifty?  You still hungry?” James asked.

Fifty finally glanced up at him then, hungry and scared, for fuck knew what reason, and glanced down at his plate again.  “‘M fine,” he lied.

Morgan caught it all, never missed a thing.  “Baby, you can have more,” she said.  “There’s a second pot on the stove, plenty with leftovers to spare.  Didn’t nobody ever let you eat til you were full?”  Fifty flushed guiltily, glancing down like it was his fucking fault he’d had a shitty childhood.  “Oh baby, no wonder you’re so skinny,” Morgan said, getting up to press a kiss to the top of his head, making him blush brighter.  

James squeezed his knee under the table.

“What you thinking about doing after the war, baby?” Morgan asked, changing the subject, sweet like that with how uncomfortable Fifty looked.  “The news says it’s supposed to be winding down, you thinking about going to school for anything?” Her favorite thing to needle about.  Baby you should get your degree.  Make your momma proud.  Go to school and make something of yourself, so you can help people who need it.

“Never thought about it.  Ma’am,” Fifty said, and James could tell that was a goddamn lie without having to see his surly look.  

He reached over and scuffed Fifty’s hair.  “You’re such a fucking liar.  What the fuck was all that the other night about officer training and all that bullshit hero talk?”

“James.  Watch your language, you weren’t raised in a barn,” Morgan snapped, glaring from the stove where she was dishing up Fifty’s plate again.

“Yes ma’am.”  He sat up a little straighter but smirked at Fifty’s uncomfortable look.  Elbowed him in the side when Fifty wouldn’t say anything.

“Thinking about officer training,” Fifty said finally, mumbling to his beer.  “Gonna go career and make a difference, help win the war,” he said.  Sat up a straighter when Morgan glanced back at him with a smile.  “Do peacekeeping after, rebuilding the colonies and all that.  If I can get in—if I can get in the top ten, and then in officer training.  If they let me,” Fifty finished, glancing sideways at James.

Morgan brought his plate back, giving him another kiss on the top of the head.  “I’m sure you’ll make it in, baby,” she said.  “The world needs more good-hearted boys trying to make a difference.  Now eat your seconds so you can have pie.”

Fifty stood at the sink washing dishes after, with Sean and Jessi drying, letting them talk his ear off about whatever cartoon they were watching these days.  James watched them through the screen door, sitting on the back step having his cigarette.

“He’s a pretty one,” Morgan said quietly, closing the door behind her as she came out to sit on the step.  James watched her settle with raised eyebrows.  “You been making eyes at him all night, baby, don’t think I can’t tell it’s serious this time, you got to stop picking up strays to bring home.  Just—“ Morgan frowned, glancing back in the house.

“What?”

“Just—don’t get too attached, baby, you can’t fix all his problems for him.  All you can do is be there to help and try not to add to his troubles, you hear me?”  She gave him a squeeze, too short now to get her arm all the way around his shoulders like she used to, but still strong.  

He gave her a kiss on the cheek.  “Don’t worry bout me, we’ll be fine,” he said.  She gave him a pat on the cheek and got back up.

“Sacha, you get away from those dishes, don’t need guests doing dishes in this house with all these layabouts afoot.  Get out and go have a sit, baby,” she said, chasing Sacha out of the house.  He stood in the door with a stunned look on his face, looking lost until James took his hand and pulled him down to sit on the step.

“You ok?  You been looking like someone’s about to jump you all night,” James said, passing Fifty the pack of cigarettes and the lighter.

“‘M fine,” Fifty lied, fishing out a cigarette.  “Just a little too much like being back in foster care, you know?  Kids’re cute, though.  You should tell your mom I said thanks for dinner.”

James shoved him, just a little.  “Tell her yourself.  You really serious about that officer training bullshit?”  Fifty just grunted, getting his cigarette lit.  “You got a long way left if you’re gonna try for it.  You better watch out for that little shit Thirty, he’s the crazy one that cut up all those assholes who tried to fuck him the first couple of weeks.  Don’t pick a fight with him and get your pretty face cut up, baby.  And officer training is just a bunch of work and babysitting morons like us once you make it.”  

Fifty just smoked in silence for a while, looking out over the little dark yard crowded with toys.  Rolling something over in his head, thinking too hard.  “You think I can make top ten?  Get out stationed with you, maybe?” Fifty asked finally.

James took a deep breath, trying to find the right answer for that one.  He’d thought Fifty knew he didn’t have a chance with Two out for him, but maybe he was dumber or crazier than he looked.

“Nah, fuck it, nevermind, you’re right,” Fifty said when James took too long.  “Forget I said anything, Two’s right.”

James winced.  

Fuck-up gypsy trash.  

Just another ugly gypsy whore like his mother.

Waste of goddamn taxpayer money, you ought to do the world a favor and finish what your mother’s coathanger started before I do it for you.

You got knocked down to Fifty because that’s where you belong.

James took another deep breath, wondering if it was more fucked up to lie to Fifty about this or more fucked up that a lie was probably the first nice thing anybody’d ever said to him.  “Two won’t fucking like it, but yeah, you can probably make it, baby,” James said finally.  “We’ll get stationed out and then you can tell him where to shove his fucking boots when you make lieutenant.”

Fifty laughed, really fucking laughed the first time James had heard, but cut himself off guiltily, giving James a look sideways like he expected a smack on the back of the head.  James just nudged him with his elbow again, anything to keep Fifty from going all blank and serious again.  Fifty gave him half a lopsided smile, blushing and trying to hide behind his cigarette.

“Boys, come on in and help me get the pie cut,” Morgan called.  “Sacha baby, you want pecan or cherry?  Or both?”  James ground his cigarette out in the bucket of sand next to the door and leaned over to kiss Fifty, threading their fingers together as Fifty sighed against him, relaxing for the first time since they’d met.


	9. Encke

**Encke**

**  
**

Fifty was a cheap date, drunk off his ass before James was hardly buzzed.  He’d taken Fifty down to the corner bar, the one where they never checked IDs and the old vets bought him a beer once in a while.  Cheap beer, torn seats and a sticky floor, but Fifty finally relaxed, not glancing over his shoulder all the time or looking to pick a fight with anybody.

He was so fucking skinny, all bone and gristle when James swung an arm around his shoulder and brushed his lips against Fifty’s ear to be heard over the low roar of the crowd.  He was so fucking beautiful, pressing against James a little longer than he needed to every time someone elbowed past them, his skinny ass pushed back against James’ crotch and glancing up at him through his hair.

Fifty was a pretty good date, finally gave James some competition in darts, like the little shit had started doing in training, trying to beat James’ record in field stripping a rifle and target shooting, but it gave them something to do while they drank.  And it gave James a reason to stare at Fifty’s skinny ass and the muscles of his back, Fifty finally at ease enough to smirk back when he caught James looking instead of getting surly.  So James pushed him a little more, slid his hand up and down Fifty’s tight thigh when they went back to the bar for another beer, and Fifty leaned into him without blushing this time, watching James’ mouth.

They drank too much, just like always, but it’d be the last fucking chance for it before getting stationed out.  Might as well have a good time at it, and maybe drink just enough to not remember it later.  Easier for both of them that way.  Have a good time on leave, before they went back to camp and everything went back to normal.

When James ended up against the wall with Fifty staring up at him, leaning into him with his fingers looped into James’ front pocket, he finished his beer fast and took Fifty’s away from him.  Shoved him away to lead him back to the bathroom, glancing around as he locked the door behind them.

Fifty was on him before the door was all the way closed, pushing him against the wall and almost standing on his tiptoes to clumsily suck James’ ear.  James grabbed his ass, hauling Fifty against him and grunting with Fifty’s teeth sharp on his neck and how hard it made him.

He didn’t really realize just how drunk Fifty was until the little shit leaned against him, squinting down with one eye closed as he fumbled with James’ fly.  

Too drunk to manage a button, too drunk for sex.  James pushed Fifty’s hands away, ignoring Fifty’s pout.  Took a deep breath and blew it out, ignoring how hard he was.  “Baby, you’re drunk.”

“So?” Fifty demanded, looking pissed and reaching to palm James’ cock through his jeans.  James shoved his hands away.

“So you’re not a whore and I’m not gonna fuck you against the bathroom wall when you’re too drunk to stand up.  Come on, Fifty, let’s go.”

“Buzzkill.”

James laughed and lifted one of Fifty’s arms up over his shoulders, hauling him by the waist to stumble out of there.  “Nah, baby, I’m only kissing your ass now so you can’t write me up once you make lieutenant.  Just remember who your friends were once you get there.”

Fifty squinted at him sideways, looking surly and ready to swing a punch, but didn’t say anything while James paid up their tab, swaying there silent.  “You mean that?” he asked as James shoved him through the crowd.

“Yeah, course you’re gonna make officer,” James said, shouldering Fifty out the door into the cold night, wishing Fifty would just let officer training drop.

“Meant the other thing,” Fifty said quietly, not looking at him.

James had to think about that for a second, trying to figure out what Fifty meant.  “Did I mean we’re friends?  Course we’re friends, baby,” James said finally, steering Fifty around a street lamp.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  Course we are.  C’mon, I know a good diner.  You hungry for pancakes?”

* * *

They stumbled home a little less drunk later, smelling like coffee and fake maple syrup instead of beer after they sat at the diner for a couple hours getting Fifty sobered up.  Little shit pouted for a while about not getting fucked, but James squeezed Fifty’s knee under the table, tracing circles on the the inside of his thigh and Fifty lightened up some.

There was a note and a cardboard box on the kitchen table when they finally kicked off their shoes in the dark, Fifty pressing against James’ back and trying to palm his cock again as he read Morgan’s note.  James shoved Fifty away again, telling him to go up to bed as James opened the box.  

Can’t let him eat breakfast in his uniform, pick out some pajamas that’ll fit him.  Morgan was too soft-hearted, babying Fifty every chance she got and coddling him when all she got back was his hunched shoulders and surly looks.  But then she would never have been a good foster mother if she hadn’t been soft-hearted, and Fifty looked like he needed some coddling.

James rustled around in the box of clothes waiting for someone to grow into them, finally found an old set of pajamas from when he’d been fourteen or so, blue and faded at the knees.  Fifty would have to roll the cuffs up three times to keep from tripping over them, but it’d do for the weekend.

He tried not to feel too guilty about it when he brought them up and watched Fifty change, all lean muscle and skinny legs.  Wasn’t James’ fault he’d laughed along with everyone else when the sergeant picked some skinny gypsy kid out of inspection the first morning to make an example of, Two ripping the front of the little shit’s threadbare shirt and throwing him down in the mud to do pushups with a foot on his back, lecturing everybody else about keeping their damn mouths shut and following orders.  

No way of knowing then that Fifty didn’t have a mother for Two to scream at him about, or any civilian clothes besides what Two tore off his back and ground his muddy boot into.  So it wasn’t like James had any way of knowing what a huge asshole he must have looked like laughing along with everyone else.  Not his fault.  He’d done the best he could by Fifty since then.

Fifty pulled the drawstring tight, pulling it almost all the way drawn to keep it from falling down his skinny ass.

“C’mere, baby,” James said, pulling Fifty down to lay next to him, the drunk little shit curled against his back and asleep before James even had the blanket pulled up.  He put a hand on Fifty’s warm thigh, falling asleep himself with Fifty’s nose pressed against his back.

* * *

It was the middle of the damn night when he woke up later, stiff from sleeping cramped in the narrow little bed and rock hard from Fifty’s teasing earlier.  He listened for a minute to Fifty’s slow breathing, wondering if it was worth the trouble of waking him up to see if he’d sobered up any.

Finally decided it was, only one more night left for a good slow fuck before they had to go back to camp, and the little shit had been so damn horny earlier.  No reason not to take advantage of it if Fifty was sobered up enough that it wouldn’t be taking advantage.  “You awake, baby?”  James rolled over and pulled Fifty back against him, his cock throbbing harder with Fifty’s skinny ass pressed into him.

“It’s the middle of the fucking night,” Fifty bitched, but he didn’t pull away, and best of all, he was awake and he didn’t protest when James undid the knot of his pajamas and started shoving them down, Fifty shimmying out of them as James pushed out of his own boxers.  Fifty almost fell out of bed with both of them thrashing around trying to get out of their clothes in the little bed, but James yanked him back, pulling Fifty back to straddle him.  

He reached up to comb his fingers through Fifty’s messy hair, Fifty licking his lips and watching James’ mouth until James finally pulled him down to kiss.  James fumbled the bottle of lube out from under his pillow as Fifty took control, always surprising James with how bad he needed to kiss, aggressive and pushy until James pressed slicked fingers into him.  Fifty sighed as James took his time, rocking Fifty against his chest and fucking him good and slow, spreading him open with Fifty’s cock rubbing hot against his.  Fifty bit his shoulder, trying to keep down a moan in the quiet dark, rolling his hips back.

Fifty decided when he’d had enough, shrugging James’ hand away as he sat up.  James curled his fingers around Fifty’s thighs as Fifty stroked him a couple times, being a tease, thumbing the tip of his cock.  James just let him tease, let Fifty lube up his cock and decide when he was ready, stroking faster and watching James’ mouth.

He sighed when Fifty finally eased himself up and back down, smooth and hot and tight, leaning down to kiss for just a second when James put his hand on the back of Fifty’s neck.  Fifty was a good fuck once he got over being scared, aggressive and begging for it hard.

He was fucking gorgeous in the warm light off the street lamp, one hand on James’ chest to keep his balance and one hand on his own cock, biting his lip to keep from making any noise.  He took sharp breaths through his nose, eyes squeezed shut, and James promised himself that if Fifty did manage to make it stationed out with the top ten, he’d find somewhere good and quiet and see what noises he could get Fifty to make.

Fifty pulled back, twisting so he could throw a leg to James’ other side, turning backwards with James’ cock still buried in him.  He arranged himself straddling James backwards, giving him a sly look over his shoulder as Fifty grabbed James’ knees and started to rock again.  Fifty did all the fucking, making the bed squeak with James too distracted watching his cock slide in and out of Fifty’s sweet skinny ass.  He put a hand on Fifty’s thigh, just to feel his muscles move, and watched the muscles of Fifty’s arms move as he kept his balance and stroked himself.

Fifty paused just long enough to get the lube again, slicking his hand to stroke himself better, and James ran his hands over Fifty’s back and the tight muscles of his neck.  He was so fucking close, knees pulled up and Fifty fucking himself faster, breathing sharply, a little moan escaping him when James gave his ass a light slap.  Fifty leaned heavily against James’ bent knees, reaching down to tug his balls and stroke, light at first and a little harder when James hissed and dug his fingers into Fifty’s hard thighs.  

“Fuck, harder, baby,” James whispered, and tried to bite back his own moan when Fifty did what he was told, tugging hard and grinding into him.

Fifty was getting bolder every time they fucked, begging and needy and demanding, everything James had ever wanted in a fuck, sweet and perfect and skinny but not breakable.  He gasped as Fifty reached further down, stroking the soft skin behind his balls, making him shudder with the teasing.

And then before he knew it, Fifty pressed a lubed finger into him and he came hard, hands tightening on Fifty’s waist and so fucking angry he couldn’t think straight.

He shoved Fifty off, flipping the little shit onto his back and pressing him to the mattress, pinning him in place with a hand on his heaving chest.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again, you hear me?” James snarled in his face, fucking pissed that he even had to say it.  Fifty stared at him, frozen and terrified, as much as Fifty ever showed what he was thinking.  “Just because I don’t beat the shit out of you like Six doesn’t mean you’re ever gonna do the fucking.  You do what I fucking tell you and that’s all, you get me?”  Fifty didn’t say anything, just stared.  “I said, do you fucking understand?”

Fifty nodded tightly, so tense James could feel him shaking, probably wondering how bad he was going to get the shit beaten out of him when they got back, and for good fucking reason.  James made a disgusted noise, pissed off that Fifty was still so fucking afraid of him and more pissed off that he had to keep the little shit afraid of him to keep him in line.  

He shoved Fifty over to lie on his belly, ignoring that Fifty had gone soft and not gotten off.  He hooked his leg over Fifty’s knee to show he wasn’t that mad.  Pissed, but he wasn’t going to get rid of Fifty just for that.  Didn’t need to tell Fifty that, though, better to keep him scared and needy than thinking he could get away with everything.  Fifty shivered and didn’t say anything, letting James throw an arm over his back and laying there quiet.

Neither of them said anything about it in the morning, when James woke up to an empty bed.  Fifty curled tight into the corner of the top bunk of the other bed, back pressed to the wall and looking like he hadn’t slept at all.  James just gave him a look and jerked his head for Fifty to get dressed.  No sense in apologizing; they had one more night of leave and then everything would be back to normal, back to where they both knew the rules and things weren’t so fucking complicated with pretending this was anything more than what it had been that first night.


	10. Encke

**Encke**

**  
**

“Have a good leave, Eight?” Six asked too casually while they sat around after drill one afternoon, shooting the shit and watching the high numbers scramble around camp, Two barking out orders.

Only a couple days back and things were back to normal, Fifty just as enthusiastic on his knees as he’d always been, even though he’d been quiet and scared that last day, even though James didn’t see him quite as often as before.  Fifty said he was just on heavier KP rotation, even though James hadn’t heard about it from Two or anybody else.  But Fifty showed up evenings looking exhausted and sore, so James didn’t push him on it, tried to be sympathetic and not feel too guilty that he’d gotten Fifty in deeper shit with Two by pulling him out for another leave.

“Pretty good,” James shrugged.  No reason to give Six anything personal, even if he had to keep giving him cigarettes to keep him away from Fifty.  

It was all just a game, push and push back, see who gave first and who couldn’t keep his calm.  They’d settled out their positions the first week and now it was all dancing around trying to get someone else to snap first, making like they were all good friends when everyone knew they’d stab each other in the throat if they got the chance.  The only black man to make it past Fifteen, James knew if he made the first move the others would all be on him at once even if they hated each other, looking for any hint of blood in the water.

Fifty jogged past then, hauling a bag of potatoes over one shoulder almost bigger than he was, the camp cook hollering down the parade ground for him to hurry up.  Seven and Twelve whistled and catcalled after him, Fifty throwing them a dirty look over one shoulder.  Kept moving, thank god, dangerous enough for him to get attention from these assholes as it was, nevermind getting caught with a group of them and giving them an excuse to beat the shit out of him when James couldn’t do a damn thing about it, not against all of them, not and get himself out of basic alive.

Nine nudged James, watching Fifty hungrily.  “Bet he’s a good fuck, skinny little ass like that.”  James just laughed and shrugged, no reason to talk it up when everybody was already looking for him to fuck up, pissed that he’d let Fifty move up so fast, jostling everybody.  Not with all the low numbers getting sick of the deals they’d made in the early weeks, bored and restless and looking for someone else to fuck, looking for ways to piss on each others’ boots without coming out and starting a fight.

“Not like he doesn’t get enough practice,” Six said, quiet, casual.  Just making conversation.

James clenched his hands on his knees.  He should have just fucking taken Six out in the first week, but now their final numbers were all but settled, and if he made a move now and lost, he’d be fucked over when they were stationed out together where Six could get him with friendly fire.  “The fuck does that mean?” James said slowly.

“Think you know what it means, Eight, or you too busy licking his pussy to think about it?  Must taste pretty good after everybody else’s had their turn fucking him.”

James ground his jaw.  

It was all just bullshit, just trying to get a rise out of him and make him beat the shit out of Fifty himself so the rest of the low numbers wouldn’t have to take care of Fifty themselves and risk pissing off James too.  Fifty knew better than to fuck around behind his back.  Even if he’d been a whore, even if he was still a whore, Fifty knew better than that.  Things were bad, didn’t want to get the shit beaten out of me.  Fifty was a dumb little shit, but he knew what his own self interest was, even if James had to remind him of it once in a while. 

So James just shrugged it off, making like Six had just told a good joke and they were just shooting the shit, when it was anything but.  “Wouldn’t know, but I hear Forty has a good time licking yours,” James said evenly.

Six laughed, fake and hollow, turning the conversation to bragging what a good little slut Forty was, watching James out of the corner of his eye, sizing him up.  James just looked back, thinking about who else he’d have to beat the shit out of to show Six not to fuck with him, thinking about all the times Fifty had shied away from him since they’d gotten back, sneaking around and avoiding him.

* * *

He went to sit with Fifty in the crowded barracks a couple nights later, sending Thirty-Six running out of his spot on Fifty’s bunk with a look.  Fifty looked up at him as he sat, half hopeful and half scared.  James had been sitting on the other end of the barracks with the low numbers, watching Fifty and Thirty-Six talk, turning over in his head how to do this, how to catch Fifty out in a lie if it was true.  

No reason to listen to every goddamn thing Six and Nine and Twelve tried to tell him, pushing his buttons, playing games with him, hinting about Fifty getting on his knees for anybody and everybody, no reason to not give Fifty the benefit of the doubt and let him explain it if it wasn’t true.  But no reason not to worry about it either, Fifty sneaking around with more and more bullshit excuses about being on KP longer hours when James had checked up on him and knew it wasn’t true, trying to avoid him and pretend he was too exhausted for a quick fuck, trying to get out of his end of the deal.

Decided to just lay it out, be honest with Fifty and see how far that got them.  Fifty watched him sideways, elbows on his knees and hands together, just waiting for James to say something.  Shoulders a little hunched like he knew what was coming.

He squeezed Fifty’s knee, a little threat and a little promise, and said it.  Quiet, so it wouldn’t carry over the low noise of everyone else talking in the crowded barracks.  “Fifty.  If you’re fucking around on me, you’re on your own.”

Fifty took slow breaths, leaning away from him.  “‘M not fucking anyone,” he said, surly and on the edge of defiance, glancing up and back down.  Hiding something, just like always, but whether he was trying to hide a lie or just trying to hide being scared, James couldn’t tell.

“Then quit with avoiding me.  Because I tell you what, Fifty,” James said, grabbing Fifty to haul him closer, his hand on the back of Fifty’s neck so the little shit would know he was serious.  “If I find out you been fucking around behind my back, I’ll beat the shit out of you myself for making me look like a fucking moron.  You get me?”

Fifty glared up at him, grinding his jaw, and James tightened his grip on Fifty’s neck, waiting for the crazy little fuck to try taking a swing at him.  Fifty might get one punch in, if he was lucky and fast, but Fifty had never been either, and James knew exactly what all his weak spots were.  Even if Fifty managed to land a punch on him, it would only be one and then Fifty would be in the fucking hospital.

They stared at each other, but Fifty looked away first.  “Never wanted to fuck anybody but you,” he said finally, looking down at the floor, and James almost believed it was true.

“Then you better make sure it stays that way,” James said, and thought for a second about saying something else to apologize for letting Six get him so suspicious.  

Until Fifty glanced up and James caught a flash of something—resentment, maybe, or just plain fucking hatred—and thought better of it.  He didn’t have to apologize to Fifty for any goddamn thing, not with all the hassle of doing the little shit the favor of keeping him from getting his ass kicked every fucking day.  He shoved Fifty just a little as he got up, feeling the little shit’s eyes on his back as he stepped out for a smoke with Six.

* * *

“The fuck happened to you?” James demanded after lunch a couple days later as Fifty eased himself down to sit gingerly, wincing.  

His lip was mashed open, one eye starting to swell shut.  Crazy little shit had probably finally gotten it from Two, got the shit beaten out of him for mouthing off one too many times.  Twenty-seven or eight, somewhere in there, picking two or three fights a day like he thought he was ever going to make it anywhere.  Getting vicious and desperate, fighting dirty and pissing everyone off with upsetting the rankings.  There were fucking rules, and as many times as James had tried to beat that into Fifty, the little shit didn’t listen.  

“Nothing, just a fight,” Fifty said, sounding hoarse like someone had gotten him across the throat.

“You watch for over balancing like I told you?” James teased, elbowing Fifty in the side, making him hiss and wince.  Bad fucking news, bruised or even broken ribs if Fifty had really shitty luck.

“Yeah, he just . . . got me good this time,” Fifty said, hunching and glancing over his shoulder as Twenty came in laughing with Eighteen, laughing harder when they saw Fifty huddled next to James.

“Don’t worry about it, baby, I’ll take care of him,” James said, squeezing Fifty’s knee under the table.

“No, I’ll—“ Fifty winced, twisting to look for Twenty.  “I’ll deal with it, I can take care of myself.”

James shook his head, tightening his grip on Fifty’s knee.  This he could do, send Twenty to the hospital for fucking with Fifty, and send a message to Six that he wasn’t going to be fucked with either.  See what kind of hints Six and the rest of those assholes dropped then, after they saw Twenty walking around with a couple less teeth and a good limp for laying hands on on Fifty.  “Sure you can, baby, but what the fuck good am I if I don’t watch your back?” James said.  “Everybody’ll think I’m going soft, so shut the fuck up and let me do you a favor.”  

Fifty leaned heavily on one arm, head down so he could look at the table and not meet James’ eye.  Just nodded, not saying something, guilty over needing help or getting the shit kicked out of him.

James frowned at him, trying to find something to say to make it better.  “How much longer before you’re on KP again?”

“Couple hours,” Fifty said, flat.  Brought one hand up to rub the back of his head, glancing sideways at James through his hair, trying to hide in plain sight.

“Plenty of time for a fuck, then.  Come on, baby, I’ll take your mind off it, show you something nice,” James said, getting up, but Fifty stayed sitting, holding his side.  “The fuck is wrong with you?  I said come on.”

“I just—need a couple minutes.  Just need to catch my breath,” Fifty said, not looking at him.

“You need to get to medical?”

Fifty shook his head too fast, hunching his shoulders.  “No.”

“Then walk it off and quit your bitching, he didn’t get you that bad if you don’t need a medic.  I’ll take it easy on you.  Now get the fuck up before I whoop you myself so everyone remembers who’s in charge,” James said, watching Six and Nine and Twelve watch them across the cafeteria, hungry and waiting for him to slip up just once, to show he was slipping up and going soft hearted, looking for a hint of blood in the water.

Fifty picked himself up then, finally, and let himself be pushed out of mess.  James went easy on him when they found a quiet corner, letting Fifty lay on his back and going slow, giving him room to breath, Fifty closing his eyes while they fucked.

James didn’t think about it until later, the middle of the night, when he woke up to someone was crying in the dark.  Just like every other night, someone’s hushed little breaths trying not to be heard in the barracks with their whole squadron.  He tried to roll over and go back to sleep, ignoring it the way he ignored it every night when somebody was homesick or just too fucking weak to take it anymore.  Mostly ignored it until it stopped and he finally realized it’d been coming from Fifty’s bunk.


	11. Cain: Twenty-Five

**Cain**

Fucking One; Sacha should have kept his head down from the first day, but he went up through the listings fast after Eight’s little road trip and One called him in to talk about admirable ambition and goals and not getting sent back to the colonies and getting fucked over One’s desk.  

Eight had gotten rid of the problem with Six with his lousy fucking cigarettes, like a carton of smokes was worth the same as the fucking humiliation of being on his knees for all those assholes, but there wasn’t a fucking thing Eight could do about One even if Sacha ever told him.  At least with One there wasn’t anyone else watching.  At least if he didn’t tell Eight Sacha could pretend everything would work out later.

Eight told him to slow the fuck down and stop making waves on his way up, pissed that he had to fight to stay in the top ten as Sacha moved up.  But Eight didn’t know what it was like having to fight just to get off the bottom.  He bitched, but he’d sent fuckers to the hospital the first week of basic, and now he was a fucking hypocrite telling Sacha to pull his punches and stop trying to break noses and fingers.  If One was going to try to send him back to the colonies, Sacha would make Six first and take everyone else down with him no matter what Eight told him to do.  Eight had always had it easy, never any fucking problems in his life.

He was a good fuck though, despite the first couple of weeks, and if Sacha could make it to the top ten before the end of basic they had a chance of being assigned together.  That wouldn’t be so bad, have someone to fuck around with and watch his back from the start, if being stationed out there was anything like basic.

Eight didn’t have time to try to make like they were friends, busy with his own bullshit keeping Nine and Twelve from moving up.  But if they got assigned together things would be different.  Maybe more like leave, time to fuck without worrying about getting caught and not having to sneak around avoiding Eight after getting fucked by One.  

Getting assigned together could have been pretty good.  Could pretend like they were friends.  Pretend like there was anything between them besides a deal.

Sacha kept that part of it out of his mind and tried to concentrate on getting into the top ten so it would be a possibility.  Eight didn’t have time for anything but a quick fuck once in a while.  So Sacha made sure to get himself off when Eight wanted it, less embarrassed every time Eight saw him get off because Sacha got so fucking hard on the idea of making Eight do anything, even if it was on his knees.  Eight wanted something from him besides an empty mouth, even if he was annoyed lately that he had to work to keep his place and Sacha didn’t.

Eight found him in mess, finally in the top half just that morning.  Sacha watched him come in and head straight for him, not like when Eight caught his eye across a room for a quick blow.  He just sipped his coffee and watched Eight, though, because he looked pissed and Sacha wasn’t going to show he cared, not when he had Forty and Thirty-six looking at him across the table.  

Eight stopped behind them, pointing over their heads at him.  “Fifty.  Get your ass up,” he snapped.  

Sacha ground his teeth, looking back and forth from Forty to Thirty-Six, looking for either of them to say anything, but he stood up.  No reason to get his ass kicked here where everyone could see it.  If Eight had taught him how to fight, Eight knew all his blindspots and all his stumbles, and there was no fucking reason to let everyone else see all his weak spots laid bare so they could just drag him down again.  

He brushed past Eight without saying anything on the way to the door.  Bad idea to turn his back on Eight if he was pissed, but he wasn’t going to let everyone see him skulk after Eight like a dog either.

“Hope you wash your dick off with vodka after you’re done with him, Eight, never know where that one’s been,” Six called after them as Eight pushed him out the door, and it was a good fucking thing because Sacha would have had to go after every single fucking one of the bastards who laughed.

Sacha could feel Eight glaring a hole in his back as they walked in silence, Eight’s hand pushing him to an empty supply room.  “What the fuck did that mean?” Eight demanded, pushing Sacha against the wall as soon as the door closed.

“Nothing,” Sacha said, even though he knew exactly what Six meant.  “You said yourself Six is an asshole.”

Eight’s hand twisted his jacket.  “Well I just got my ass chewed out for sending Twenty to the hospital after you said he tried to fuck with you.”  Sacha tried to keep his breathing even.  “Now I hear from Eighteen that Twenty never fucking touched you.  Was that nothing too?”  Eight weighed him up, one hand on the wall next to Sacha’s head and the other pinning him against the wall, if the look Eight gave him wasn’t enough by itself.  Sacha took shallow breaths, Eight wound tight enough to deck him if he made a wrong move.

“No.  I told you what happened.”  Sacha hadn’t told him all of it, sure that Eight would beat the shit out of him instead of Twenty if he knew all of it, but now he wished he had.  

Too late, though, Eight would only accuse him of trying to get out of one lie with another if he told all of it now.  Sacha watched Eight take a couple of slow breaths, still weighing him.

“You’re a fucking liar,” Eight said finally.  “Have you ever said an honest thing in your miserable goddamn life?”

“The fuck does it matter if you heard what you wanted from Eighteen anyway?” 

Eight shook him against the wall.  “It matters because if we’re going to do this thing where I stick my neck out to keep your skinny ungrateful ass from getting beaten and fucked back to that shithole you crawled out of, I need to trust that every damn thing I hear come out of your mouth is the fucking truth when I decide to kill someone for it.  Any other little lies I should know about while I’m being generous?”

There was plenty he hadn’t told Eight about besides letting Twenty fuck him when he’d been cornered and couldn’t fight his way out of it.  The vodka he’d blown Fifteen for.  One.  But Eight had never asked, Sacha had never said anything about any of it, so those weren’t really lies and Eight didn’t need to know about any of it.  Not if he was listening to Eighteen and pissed off anyway.  Sacha shook his head.

“Good,” Eight said finally, his grip relaxing on Sacha’s jacket.  “Because you lie to me one more time and I’ll help Two send your skinny ass back to the colonies.  You hear me, Fifty?”

Sacha ground his teeth and stuck out his chin.  It hadn’t been Fifty for a long time, would never be Fifty again if he could do anything about it.  “It’s Twenty-five now,” he said.  Didn’t fucking care if Eight didn’t like it, Eight’s face going hard, Sacha wasn’t going to put up with that bullshit when he was in the top ten one step behind Eight.  

They looked at each other, Eight’s hands tightening on his jacket again.  Pissed at being defied or stood up to or afraid of being passed up, Sacha couldn’t quite tell.  “I don’t give a fuck,” Eight said slowly.  “Get on your knees, you need to remember what use your lying mouth is.”

Sacha felt his face go red, fighting to keep his hands from curling at his sides so Eight wouldn’t see them shake.  Eight wouldn’t make him do it; this was just a pissing contest to see which of them would blink first, and Sacha was done with being pushed around.  If they were going to get assigned together, he wouldn’t take getting pushed on his knees every time Eight decided Sacha had fucked up because that would happen too fucking often.

“No,” Sacha said finally.

Eight watched him, looked his face up and down.  Looked straight through him at all the stupid shit he’d ever done or said and saw exactly how to get Sacha on his knees.  “Fine,” Eight said with a shrug.  “Finish the rest of your fights on your own, Fifty, I’m done fucking gypsy trash.”  Eight pushed him away with a disgusted look, turning for the door.

Sacha made himself do it; he’d done worse, for worse reasons.  With Eight and Two out for him, he’d be sent back to the colonies in a box, if One didn’t send him there first.  Eight looked over his shoulder at the sound of Sacha’s knees cracking on the cold concrete floor.

They looked at each other, Sacha tilting his chin up to keep eye contact as Eight came back to him.  Just because he had to do this to keep Eight didn’t mean he had to like it.

Eight was rough, rougher than Six and Eleven had been, pulling on Sacha’s hair and not giving him any room to breath.  Yanked his head back and slapped him when Sacha’s teeth grazed his cock accidentally, like he had any control of it with Eight fucking his mouth too hard to think about anything except finishing him as fast as possible.

He swallowed as Eight came, his face throbbing from the slap.  Sacha closed his eyes and didn’t think about it until Eight was finally done and he dragged Sacha’s face up to look at him.  Sacha made himself open his eyes, even if he didn’t want to see the softer look Eight gave him.

“You going to be honest with me from now on, Fifty?” Eight asked, hand heavy on the back of Sacha’s neck.

Sacha wiped his mouth, swallowing back the bitter taste.  Eight didn’t move to let him up, just stood there now that he was dressed again and waited for an answer.  “Yeah,” Sacha lied, and Eight helped pull him up.


	12. Cain: Nine

**Cain**

They didn’t see much of each other after that, except to fuck and not talk, Sacha keeping his fucking mouth closed so Eight couldn’t throw anything he said back at him.  He made it to Nine without any of Eight’s fucking help, sending the old Nine to the hospital with four less teeth after all the times the fucker had seen him on his knees, and he’d kick in a couple more as soon as the asshole was walking again.  

Eight wouldn’t look at him, didn’t even fucking acknowledge it when he finally made it to the top ten.  You got knocked down to Fifty because that’s where you’re gonna stay.  Just fucked him hard, no lube anymore, ignoring it if Sacha managed to get hard from it, neither of them saying anything about it.  Sacha got ignored and ignored Eight back, winning his own fights because it wasn’t worth the humiliation of getting on his knees to beg for Eight’s help.  

There was still Six and Two, though.  And One.  Not a fucking thing he could do about One, but there was only a few weeks left of basic anyway.  If he could keep his head down and keep Six or Two or One from fucking him over too badly he might still manage to get stationed with Eight somewhere and work things out.

Or he thought, until Eight caught him one morning, cutting him off as Sacha went to finally sit with the low numbers, everybody watching them as Eight stood in his way.  He could see Six smirking at the table behind Eight, the bastard enjoying the show.  

“Heard you moved up to Nine, baby.  Who’d you have to blow to do that?” Eight asked, his face dangerously blank as he stepped closer, the only thing between them Sacha’s tray.  “You’re not moving farther up,” Eight said when he wouldn’t answer.  “Get back where you belong and wait for me before drill if you know what’s good for you, Fifty,” he said, watching Sacha’s knuckles whiten against the tray.  Eight turned and left him standing there in the middle of the cafeteria, everybody watching to see if Sacha would do what he was told.  So he fucking left.  Didn’t eat, didn’t wait for Eight.  

He was fucking done with doing what he was told, and see how Eight liked it when he had to call Sacha Six.

* * *

 

**Deimos**

Nine wasn’t very good at this game, Thirty thought. Nine wanted things too badly to last long in basic; wanted to move up to Six, the highest they could go without a commission, wanted to prove himself even after their lieutenant One stepped in to slap him back in place.

Thirty liked where he was; high enough to not be cut at the end of basic, low enough to not be noticed. He’d figured those rules out early, just like at home in the colonies, lay low and don’t stand out. Don’t be first, don’t be last, and never volunteer. Nine hadn’t learned that yet, pissing off their sergeant Two on the first day and having to fight his way all the way up from Fifty when they were stripped of their names and given their numbers. Thirty had started in the middle and stayed there, letting Nine move up past him and take out others on his way.

If all Nine had wanted was to get out of the colonies, he was doing it the wrong way, setting himself up to be sent back either as a washout or in a coffin.

Thirty ignored him mostly, except to stay out of his way. Nine was bad news; he had no friends, Thirty didn’t want any, and Nine would take down anyone near him when he finally washed out.

Thirty was surprised, then, when he found out that Nine bent over for the lieutenant, the thought of someone so abrasive on his knees willingly—or better, unwillingly—strangely appealing. No one else seemed to know about it, though, so Thirty kept it to himself in case it was useful later.

They all fucked each other, of course. It was all part of the game and the point was to learn how to not get fucked. But the officers usually stayed out of it. Thirty started following Nine then, fascinated despite himself with finding out if Nine thought he was going to move up the rankings that way, or if he wanted it, or if One had threatened to bust him back down to Fifty.

Thirty saw, then, when Six and Two pushed Nine into the empty showers one night, and heard what happened, the smirks Six and Two gave each other as they left saying exactly what they'd done to Nine. Thirty gave Nine time to pull himself back together before going in.

Nine was dressed by the time Thirty found him, sitting on one of the benches furthest from the entrance, his shoulders hunched. Thirty came up behind him silently, bringing out a knife and holding it out handle first. Nine startled away as it came in the edge of his vision, grabbing it away as he stood, throwing himself at Thirty.

“Who the fuck are you?” Nine demanded, pushing Thirty against the wall with a hand across his throat. He smelled interesting, like home and blood and too much sex, dangerous and familiar at the same time. He still had blood on his face from a bloody nose Six or Two had given him.

Thirty put his hands up, placating, a little disappointed but not offended that Nine didn’t recognize him. “Thirty,” he whispered. “Misha,” he added, hopeful. They weren’t supposed to share their real names, but Thirty was in too deep now, and it might be useful in pulling something else from Nine.

“The fuck is wrong with your voice?” Nine asked, but Thirty just shrugged, not interested in giving that much yet. “What did you see?” Nine demanded, his fingers tightening on Thirty’s throat.

Thirty shrugged again. “Nothing,” he whispered.

Nine backed off, eyeing him suspiciously but hefting the knife, holding it like he’d never used one before. “You’re quiet as a fucking mouse,” he said, smirking finally. “You’re the one who cut all those fuckers up, aren’t you?” Thirty nodded, pleased to be recognized. “C’mon,” Nine said, jerking his head at the door. “Got a bottle of vodka in my footlocker if you show me how to use this.”

Thirty followed. He couldn’t not follow, wondering what else Nine wanted.

He let Nine fuck him after that, no reason to worry about it since they were so far apart in the rankings, and Thirty reluctantly found himself pulled closer when Nine helped beat back Forty-five when he tried to climb up the rankings. Nine had no subtlety with a knife, no finesse, but he was fast and a quick learner. No subtlety in bed, either, but Thirty taught him a couple things there too, after Nine got over trying to prove that he could fuck just as hard as he got fucked.  

Nine was a dangerous friend, but even more dangerous an enemy. Not much choice in it.

* * *

 

**Cain**

Six and Seven knew what was up, always together now even though they hated each other because they had the good fucking sense to know Sacha would rather take them out than go against Eight.  One of them  alone he had a chance of taking down by himself, but not both together.

He thought he had a chance one night when he caught Six alone near the showers, out of the way and empty enough to jump him and move past Seven and Eight all at once.  But Two came out of the dark, both of them waiting for him.  They’d planned it out, laughing at how bloody they made him by the end of it, and Sacha sat there shaking alone in the showers after he pulled himself back together, planning out how he’d fucking kill Six.  Two he’d never be able to touch, not without getting sent to military prison for the rest of his fucking life, but if he could make it look like Six ended up on the wrong end of a fight, he’d get a reprimand and that was all.  

Things happened in basic.  Six’s own fault if he was asking to get killed.

And then there was Thirty.  Quiet as a fucking mouse, he came out of nowhere too with his little knife and his creepy voice like he’d been waiting forever for this.  Didn’t make a move on Sacha, though, even though he’d cut up all those assholes who’d tried to fuck him until everyone learned better.  Thirty had never gotten fucked, not so far as Sacha had heard, and if Sacha had had the good sense to think about it earlier, he’d have asked Thirty to teach him something instead of Eight.

Thirty stuck close to him after they started fucking, didn’t put up a fight to keep from getting fucked even though Sacha obviously didn’t know what the hell he was doing at first.  Just took it and showed Sacha how to get him off and how to use the knife, which were the same thing sometimes.

Sacha couldn’t avoid Eight forever, though, as much as he tried to stay out of his way.  Eight would be able to see right through him, and then Sacha would have Six, Seven, Eight and Two out for him if they weren’t all talking about how to gut him already.

He saw Six and Eight and some other fuckers sitting outside the barracks together, no other reason for Sacha to be there except to be going to the barracks and no way to just turn around without looking like a fucking coward, so he kept walking.  Kept his head up and watched them without looking at them, tense and ready to get jumped, but nothing else he could do besides wait for it.

“Fifty,” Eight snapped as he went by, and Sacha heard him get up when he didn’t stop.  “You fucking look at me when I’m talking to you, you little cocksucker,” Eight said to his back.  Sacha pushed through the door, fingering the knife in his sleeve Thirty had given him.

“Have you gone fucking deaf, Fifty?  Every fucking time I see you you’re with that little shit Thirty.  You sneaking around because you’re afraid to get caught at something?” Eight said, following him in.

Sacha stopped then, keeping his face blank and turning to look Eight in the eye.  “Go fuck yourself, Eight,” he said slowly.  “It’s not your goddamn business anymore what I do.”

Eight ground his jaw.  “It’s my fucking business so long as I say it is.  What the fuck were you doing in the showers the other night?”

Sacha glanced at the closed door.  Of course Six had spread it around, no point in doing it if no one knew about it.  No point in doing it if Eight didn’t know about it.

“Nothing happened,” Sacha lied, hating himself for giving a damn what Eight thought about him anymore.

“No?”

“No.”

“Then why the fuck is Six going around telling everyone how you begged him and Two to fuck you?  Why the fuck am I hearing you’ve been getting on your knees for One and Fifteen and everyone else?  Why the fuck” Eight said, hauling him up by his collar and throwing him against the wall, “am I bothering to do anything for a fucking whore?”

“Like you’ve ever done anything besides fuck me,” Sacha spat, not giving a damn anymore.  Eight could and probably would beat the shit out of him, but Sacha would put up a fight this time even if it meant getting dropped back to the bottom of the rankings.  It’d be worth it just to finally show Eight he wasn’t a fucking coward, that he could stand up to anyone, even Six, even him.  

Eight saw it in his face, though, had always been able to see right through him, because he pushed Sacha away, sending him stumbling against a bed, barely keeping his balance, fucking humiliated as Eight watched him catch himself.

“We’ll see if One can keep you from getting sent back to the colonies, because I don’t fuck sluts.  Hope you get it hard from Six next time,” Eight said over his shoulder as he started to leave.

Sacha launched himself at Eight, but got backhanded against the wall, just like the first time.  Eight would always be too fast for him, and Sacha would never be able to cut him like he was going to do Six.  Eight left him there crumpled against the wall, gone before Sacha could push himself up.  He could hear Six and the rest of the fuckers laughing through the door.

When Sacha and Thirty finally got him, Six bled out slower than he’d thought, Thirty standing there looking sick.  Six’s blood spread all over the concrete floor, a huge pool of it creeping closer to their boots.  Thirty edged back from it, but Sacha just looked down at his dark reflection in it as it got closer.


	13. Encke

**Encke**

**  
**

He should never have fucked the little shit.

Morgan would have been ashamed of him if she knew any of it, and when she waved at Fifty and his sister at graduation, James tugged her away and wouldn’t explain what had happened, sure he could see Six’s blood on the little shit’s boots.  Fifty had always been meticulous, never missed a fucking thing, never had a hair out of place or a stray wrinkle in his fatigues.  In his dress uniform, with Thirty just behind him, James was sure Fifty had left just a trace of Six’s blood on his boots to remind everyone, especially James, how he’d managed to get out of basic at the top.  

He could practically smell it on Fifty when they stood at attention all but shoulder to shoulder that last inspection before being shipped out, lined up with Fifty and Thirty on one side of him, the new Nine and Ten to the other, who had been the old Seven and Twelve, glancing at James and past James, planning out how to take out him or Fifty or Thirty and it didn’t fucking matter because as a squad they’d all try to take each other out with friendly fire as soon as they were finally stationed together.

Thank fuck One had the good sense to have them assigned separately, breaking up the top ten and scattering them all to different units.  It hardly ever happened and it’d be in his file forever—poor unit cohesion, trained in a squad with anti-social tendencies, poor candidate for promotion—but at least he was stationed out alone, without any of the other backstabbers, where he didn’t have to think about all the promises he’d made to Fifty and all the fucking lies Fifty had told him.

* * *

Fifty went up from Twenty-five fast, too fast, faster than he’d jumped any other ranks, and James let him climb up, half hoping Fifty would piss off someone dangerous and either get put in his place or come crawling back for protection.  But Fifty was fucking prideful and didn’t ask for help, just won his own fights against assholes twice his size by jumping them at night, when it didn’t matter if he wasn’t fast or strong, because he was sneaky and mean, which worked so long as he managed to avoid letting anyone else catch him first. 

They still fucked, of course, otherwise there was no way to keep Fifty safe from Six and Nine and Twelve if he wasn’t anybody’s property anymore, but James was out of lube and out of the patience he’d had for Fifty’s bullshit on leave, so it was fast and hard and probably hurt, but Fifty didn’t show it, didn’t say a word anymore.  James didn’t ask where the bruises came from when Fifty showed up with scraped cheeks and split lips, and if he was being honest, he didn’t really fucking care.  No reason to get his ass chewed out again for picking another fight over the ungrateful little shit.  Didn’t care who Fifty was getting bruised up by, since the little shit probably deserved it anyway.

Not until he saw the dark purple fingermarks on Fifty’s ass and thighs one night, then he did care.  

Started to notice the faint redness around his wrists when the little shit slipped back from One’s quarters in the evenings, started to piece together all of Six’s hints and Fifty’s lies.  Nine’s lies, once he was in the top ten, having climbed up on his knees.  

James should have known the little shit couldn’t have gone up so fast without whoring himself out for it, he’d been too much of an optimist believing in Fifty, when he should have known better from the first night.  Fifty had only gotten off the bottom by whoring himself out in the first place.  Must have started putting out for One as soon as they got back from that first leave, and now here was Fifty thinking he could outpace James, just like he’d done in target practice, trying to beat James’ record on everything.

* * *

**Deimos**

“The fuck happened to you?” Nine demanded. Thirty sat gingerly, careful of his new stitches. Nine would see those later, but there was no missing the new cut across his jaw. Thirty licked at the open edge of it.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Eleven showed up to medical with a big fucking hole in his gut,” Nine said, lighting a cigarette and looking across the mess to where Eight sat.

“I know,” Thirty said, smiling at Eight’s glare.

“What other nothing you know about?” Nine asked, still watching Eight.

* * *

**Encke**

Fifty started skulking after Thirty, and only fuck knew why, both of them crazy and dangerous.  They went everywhere together, Thirty going up through the rankings too and jostling everyone like Fifty had on his way to Nine, so that James had to punch in some new asshole’s teeth every day just to stay at Eight and not get dragged down past Fifty, breathing down his neck and trying to find a way to jump James too.  

Fifty wouldn’t ever be able to take James out by himself, James knew him too well, knew exactly how to trip him up and make him stumble and make him doubt himself.  James knew Fifty well enough to know the little shit was still scared of him, sticking with Thirty because he was afraid of getting caught and having the shit beaten out of him when James finally got him alone.  

He thought about beating the shit out of Fifty, thought about teaching him a lesson, thought about throwing him back to the bottom where everyone he’d pissed off on the way off could tear him apart before he was shipped back to whatever shithole he’d crawled out of, but he couldn’t do it.  

Even with Fifty and Thirty watching him from across the mess, eyeing him up and planning out how to jump him together, how to move up from Nine and Ten to Six and Seven over his dead body, even then he couldn’t do it.  Even when he had Six and Two smirking at each other over cigarettes he’d bought to keep them away from Fifty, telling him all about what a sweet fuck Fifty had been when he begged them for it, trying to sleep his way to the top, trying to get ahead by bending over for Two like he had been for One all that time, even then James couldn’t make himself find Fifty and beat the shit out of him.  

Because Morgan would have been ashamed of him if she’d known about any of it, ashamed of him for not protecting Fifty better, and as much as James wanted to beat the shit out of Fifty for letting her coddle him and feed him and baby him when they’d been on leave, all he could tell her when she wrote to ask what Sacha wanted for dinner the night after they graduate from basic, was that Fifty had other plans.  Couldn’t explain to her why he didn’t want to talk about it or why she should just forget about the little shit.

But he could tell Fifty how it was going to be, Fifty due to get out of basic as Nine, all of them due to be stationed out together.  And even if James knew in the back of his mind he should have been ashamed of himself for taking advantage of Fifty’s desperation all that time, for shoving him around when Fifty was so much smaller and so scared, he knew Fifty was still afraid of him, and he’d use it to keep Morgan from getting her heart broken over him if he had to.  He went looking for Fifty the week before graduation, one last time to set things straight for graduation and once they were stationed out together.

He left mess one night to look for Fifty but came up short barely out the doors, Thirty following him out and cutting him off.  Thirty stood in his way, barely as high as his chest but giving him a level look, not scared of him at all.

“Get out of my fucking way, Thirty,” James said slowly, not missing the little twitch of fingers as Thirty flicked a knife down from his sleeve.

Thirty had the fucking gall to smile at him, ballsy little fucker, and James would have been lying if he said he wasn’t even a little nervous facing Thirty down.  Six would always have a big fucking scar across his chest where Thirty had gotten him the first couple weeks of basic, and James didn’t much care for the idea of bleeding out from a fight over who got to fuck Fifty.

But Thirty just fucking stood there staring him down, so James took a step towards him, not about to back down from a little shit half his size.  

“He’s not your problem anymore, Eight,” Thirty whispered in that creepy fucking voice, from getting slashed across the throat, or the firebombing, or a gas attack, or fuck knew what, everybody had a different story about him and the little fucker never talked about himself.  “He’s mine now,” Thirty said, and James didn’t miss the way he shifted the knife, ready to prove it, and James wondered how Thirty had proven it to Fifty.  Couldn’t imagine Fifty was so desperate to whore himself out to someone else that he’d let himself be cut, but the crazy little shit had always gotten off on pain.

“Thirty, if you don’t get out of my goddamn way, you’re not gonna live to regret it,” James said, and they both knew it was a bluff.

Thirty fucking smiled at him again, a real smile, bright like James had just told a fucking joke, but Thirty’s eyes were dead behind it and James had to push down a shudder.  Couldn’t help wondering what else Thirty had gotten cut out besides his voice that made him so dead like that.  “It’s not Thirty anymore, Eight,” Thirty whispered.  “It’s Seven.  Six,” he said, pointing the knife at Fifty coming up the parade ground toward them, “and Seven,” he said, pointing back at himself with it.  

“You—“ James started, and cut himself off with a swallow he didn’t mean for Thirty to see.  Only one way for Fifty and Thirty to have moved up past him, and he’d have heard about it from Six himself if there had been a fight.

“Dead,” Thirty whispered with a shrug, like they were talking about the drizzle due to blow in the next morning.  James shivered with more than the chill in the air.

James glanced over his shoulder at Fifty and decided it wasn’t worth it.  He’d never thought Fifty had it in him to kill anybody, but he could believe it, with Thirty’s fucking creepy smile, with the way Fifty and Thirty both had been sizing him up for weeks.  Six dead, and him next.

And even if it made him a fucking coward, he turned and hurried away from Thirty, brushing past Fifty one last time, catching the smell of him when they were as close as they had been on leave, but with the smell of blood under it.  They stepped wide of each other, the last time they saw each other before graduating out of basic, and James thought for the first time Fifty was less afraid of him than he was of Fifty.

He never should have fucked the little shit, but by the time he realized that, it was too late to do anything about it.  He got out of basic and didn’t think about it again, didn’t think about Fifty again, putting it all out of his mind and starting over with his new navigator.  He didn’t think about Fifty at all for a year until he found the photos in the bottom of his duffel, from when they were on leave and things could have worked out different, could have been something besides a deal, and he didn’t think about why he tucked them back safe and took them with him when he was assigned to a new navigator.


	14. Author's Note

[If you're so inclined, [Negotiation](../../501184/chapters/879884) refers back to things that have happened up to this point, but it goes a little out of continuity with the later fics in this series so I decided not to include it here.  But if you're interested, the sequence would be ch1 and 2 of the comic, the next ten ch of this fic running concurrent with the comic, ch3 of the comic up to pg 18ish, then all of Negotiation, and then back to this fic, running concurrent with the comic after pg19.  HAAHAHAHA THAT'S SO CONFUSING WHICH IS WHY I DIDN'T TRY TO FIX THE CONTINUITY OF IT]


	15. Encke

**Encke**

The months blurred together after he was stationed out, a lot of hurry up and wait, weeks of nauseating boredom punctuated with moments of intense terror, for himself and his navigator, even though he could hardly keep them separate, one injured, the next dead, another discharged on a psych eval, all of them blurring together like the days.  He was Xerxes for a few months, then Elijah then Atlas, with a Leonidas and a Malachi and an Eos.  He was Othello for about a week until he filed a complaint, then it was changed to Prospero, which was better at least than his navigator’s, who got changed to Caliban.  

Caliban didn’t last long, depressive and anxious to begin with, he got shipped out when he tried to kill himself.  James got three rounds of counseling, a call to Morgan, and another navigator named Caliban, just as nameless, blonde and replaceable as the first one.

He fucked his navigators, of course, fucked all of them to keep the other fighters away, and tried to think of it as doing the navigators a favor so they could guiltily hook up with other shy blondes.  Mostly he dated Rosie Palm once in a while and tried not to think about it the rest of the time, too exhausted to think about fucking anyone except to keep his navigators safe from the rest of the assholes aboard.

Then for a while he was Hannibal with a Scipio, and if someone thought that was a good joke, at least it wasn’t quite as racist as Othello, so he didn’t make another complaint.  Scipio wasn’t the best of his navigators, but he wasn’t the worst, and James had learned to make up for it, had learned how to watch Scipio’s back out in the ship and on station.  

Scipio lasted the longest, managed to keep them both alive and uninjured the longest, and by the end of it he’d forgotten he was James anymore, just Hannibal, and he stopped sending Morgan photos when he was on leave, stopped taking them, stopped looking at the old photos he had in the bottom of his duffel.  Easier to only think about what was in front of him then, concentrate on his work and forget he had anything to go back to so he couldn’t be so afraid of not going back to it.  

He was good at what he did, and that was all.  He was better at being Hannibal than he had been at being James, so that was who he became, where it was easier to follow orders and rules and forget that he had any obligations besides watching his navigators’ backs and killing things.  He was good at that, and didn’t try to pretend that he meant anything more to his navigators than they meant to him.

Hannibal didn’t have to worry about whether Aunt Morgan would be ashamed of him, or how Fifty (Sacha, the part of him that was still James said) was doing, or whether he was fucking up any of his navigators as badly as he’d fucked up Fifty.  So Hannibal didn’t worry about any of that; those were James’ problems.

* * *

He thought he was good at what he did, until the lieutenant called him into his office and let him twist there, wondering what the fuck an officer could have to say to him that couldn’t have just been said in briefings or a reprimand in his file.

Hannibal stood uncomfortably at attention, uneasy without Scipio beside him.  Scipio would have known how to deal with this, would have known how to deal with the lead navigator frowning down at a tablet, tapping out notes and ignoring him.  Navigators knew how to deal with delicate things, how to understand delicate nuances of social niceties, and Hannibal was lost without Scipio there to do it for him, in front of this skinny, pretty little navigator who held his whole life in his hands.  He’d only ever had to deal with one navigator at a time, his own, in the privacy of their room or their ship, where he didn’t have to worry about making notes in his file, judging everything he said, the way he stood there, the answers he gave.  Navigators were complicated. 

“Do you get along with your navigator well, Hannibal?” Keeler asked without looking up, still busy with something.  

“Yes sir,” Hannibal said, trying not to wonder if Scipio had asked for a transfer.  They weren’t as high in the rankings as he’d been with his last navigator, but they worked together fine.  Scipio would have said something if there was a problem, wouldn’t have just reported him to the lieutenant.

“Does he follow your orders well?”

“Yes sir, we’re a good team, sir,” Hannibal said.  Scipio wasn’t brilliant like Eos had been, but Eos was dead and Scipio wasn’t, so Hannibal tried not to think about it too much.  Morgan would have liked Eos, but Hannibal tried not to think about that too much either.

“Hmm,” Keeler frowned, jotting something down on the tablet.  “He’s not a very good tactician, is he?  But you’ve managed to keep him from getting you both killed so far.”

Hannibal tried not to frown, focusing just over Keeler’s shoulder.  Couldn’t contradict the lieutenant, but that didn’t mean he had to throw Scipio to the wolves either.  If he hadn’t been called in to take a reprimanding for himself, he wasn’t going to give the skinny little coward of a lieutenant ammunition to write up Scipio.  “We’re a team, sir, we both do what we can.”

“Well, if your navigator isn’t going to live up to his namesake with his tactics, he’s going to live up to it by getting you killed,” Keeler said, finally looking up.  White hair fell in his face, making him look thinner, more tired, his eyes too big.  “I’ve had you reassigned, probationary for now until I decide if the assignment’s permanent.  Have your things moved to my quarters by lights out tonight.  We’re on patrol tomorrow morning and we’ll see if you can keep up with me.  Congratulations on the promotion, Encke.  Dismissed.”

Hannibal made it out the door somehow, but stood there poleaxed and dumb outside it, navigators glancing at him as they passed.  Lead fighter.  Encke—the old Encke, whatever that poor bastard was going to be called now—wouldn’t like it, but that wasn’t Hannibal’s problem.  

* * *

Hannibal lay back on his new bunk, smoking, waiting.  Officers’ quarters weren’t much better than crew quarters, but at least Keeler had already claimed the top bunk, no climbing up to sleep next to the ceiling.  He could take getting thrown around out in the emptiness, but not the vertigo of laying that high up every night.  He’d given Scipio the briefest of hugs for how long it had been.  Scipio would get another Hannibal, and after a few weeks they would barely recognize each other in the corridors, just one more navigator and one more fighter passing without anything in common.  

Then he sat there in the empty room that his key opened, expecting something besides the barest of rooms with nothing personal about it, but not sure what.  It didn’t even smell like anyone lived in it, no hint that anyone would even be coming back to it that night besides the neat white uniforms in one of the drawers, a half-gone bottle of whiskey nestled behind them.  

Keeler came back well after crew lights out and barely gave him a glance.  “Put it out.  You don’t smoke any more,” Keeler said, slinging off his jacket.

“You don’t fucking tell me what to do, navigator,” Hannibal—Encke—said, taking another drag on it.  Not how it was going to be if they were partners, no more sir yes sir and standing at attention for a little navigator he could just as well snap in half as take orders from.  Most of his navigators had wanted a pissing contest when they were first paired together, but everyone knew how things were supposed to work out.  Just because this was a field promotion didn’t mean that it would end up any different.

“Fine,” Keeler shrugged.  “Would you like me to reassign you now, or in the morning, since you’ve wasted my time anyway?  Because you won’t last long if you can’t keep the rest of the fighters in line, and you won’t keep them in line if you can’t be faster and stronger than all of them, all the time.  You’re not one of them anymore, and they’re not your friends.”

Encke frowned, watching Keeler ignore him as he got ready for bed.  Skinny lean muscle, barely any substance to him in a fight.  Keeler moved around the little room like he wasn’t even there, like Encke was just as temporary and boring and replaceable as the sheets.

He’d heard things about everyone that’d fucked Keeler, but who hadn’t, it was just a dick wagging contest to talk up who’d fucked who and how hard, no different from basic.  But then here was the lead navigator stripping down to boxers and an undershirt as plain as could be, his white braid slinging over one shoulder.  Everyone had fucked the lieutenant, which probably meant no one had, but the rumors had to come from somewhere.  His other navigators had had some fucking modesty, changing in the head at first, trying to keep things professional and not start shit the very first night.

“The fuck would you know about fighters?” Encke said.

Keeler gave him a tired glance and started to climb the rungs to his bunk.  “Enough to have outlasted three lead fighters who couldn’t keep up.  If you want to be number four, be my guest,” Keeler said, and lay down without another word.  

Encke frowned and ground out the cigarette, flicking off the lights.


	16. Deimos

**Deimos**

“You’re so fucking skinny,” Nine slurred the last night of basic, pressing his callused hands to Thirty’s thighs.

They were both too fucking drunk, but it didn’t matter, last night of basic, a bottle of vodka and an empty storage locker, out as Six and Seven. Thirty twisted his fingers in Nine’s hair, riding him hard and watching him.

“Fuck—Thirty, fuck—“ Nine gasped as he came, biting hard into Thirty’s shoulder.

“It’s Misha,” Thirty said after, lying on the cold floor next to him.

“Sacha,” Nine said to the dark.

* * *

“Sacha?” Misha whispered, watching him get out of bed.  Less than a week into their first deployment and Nine was different already, harder, less the sniveling thing Misha had found that night in the showers and more what he was meant to be, but harder to control.

Sacha didn’t answer, just pulled his clothes on from the floor, leaving Misha alone. Misha reached for him, flinching back too late as Sacha backhanded him across the face.

“Sacha?” he tried again, watching as Sacha pulled on his shirt. Only a glare this time, different than his usual, harder, distant.

“Don’t call me that. Not ever again, Myshonok,” Sacha snapped. Misha nodded, holding his stinging cheek as Cain closed the door between them.


	17. Encke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassius is the name of Encke's second on [pg 3:20,](http://starfightercomic.com/chapter_03_page.php?page=Chapter_03_Page_20.jpg) named by A2MOM in her fic [Task Name Encke.](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8605247/1/Task-Name-Encke)

Encke sat on the hanger deck after their first patrol, trying not to puke into his helmet.

It was different seeing it from the outside, where Keeler had made it look so effortless, where he didn’t have to realize how much worse it was to be in the tiny little ship skimming the cruiser’s hull, flipping nose over tail with the only point of reference spinning away crazily and his stomach heaving worse than his first time out in the black because he’d thought he’d known what to expect and this wasn’t it.

Keeler dropped a little plastic vial of pills next to his boot, standing next to him with his face blank.  Dramamine, the motion sickness pills they put in new recruits’ kits.  He glared up at Keeler, but thought better of it and put his head back in his hands.

“Those should help.  Try to keep up next time,” Keeler said, and walked off.  Encke rubbed his face, trying to decide if he’d rather a transfer back where he wouldn’t have to deal with this shit, or to stay and show Keeler how it was going to be.  Once his stomach stopped flipping over.

* * *

He ate lunch alone in his new office, a blank little closet barely big enough to fit a desk and two chairs in, near Keeler’s in central where he could see aides and assistants hurrying in and out.  He shut the door and threw his box lunch down, starved from finally throwing up his breakfast and running laps with his new sergeant Cassius. 

He’d promoted the old Encke—Bede, now, and someone probably thought that was a hilarious fucking joke—to a staff position in the commander’s office and the old sergeant Nereid to supervising training under Cassius, no sense in leaving Bede and Nereid where he couldn’t keep an eye on them, where they could be left to plan something together.  Better to keep them where Cassius could watch his back and help keep an eye on them.

He checked up on as much as his new security allowance would let him, reviewing disciplinary records and squad assignments, flicking through the commander’s orders and all the bullshit he’d have to deal with that afternoon.  He ate his soup and his apple and his granola bar in crabby silence, trying to be grateful for the half hour of quiet but too annoyed with the mess’ idea of decent calories that barely took the edge off.  Whoever the fuck thought reconstituted french onion soup and an apple was a decent meal after being on his feet for twelve hours a day should have been shot.  Probably some fucking navigator who sat in an office all day and didn’t do any goddamn real work.

He was sitting there drumming fingers on his desk, annoyed with the shitty slow crew database and thinking about sending Cassius down to the mess for another—fuck, three or four more—apples, he was so fucking hungry, when the door chimed and he thumbed it open, half expecting one of Keeler’s blond little assistants to come in and tell him to report for another round of humiliation.

Encke, the old Encke, the poor fuck who’d gotten shoved out of his new job, stood there in the doorway, waiting to be let in to his old office.

“At ease.  Have a seat,” Encke said, barely keeping himself from standing at attention for the lieutenant, because he wasn’t a lieutenant anymore and Encke was.

Encke—Bede, he was Bede now—eased himself down to sit, less uncomfortable with this than Encke felt, or at least he looked it.  He closed the door as insurance, didn’t need this to turn into a dick waving performance for all the damn navigators in central, word probably going around that they were in here beating the shit out of each other.

“What do you want, En—Bede?” Encke demanded, cursing himself out for slipping.  Goddamn codenames and being switched around like they were interchangeable, this would have been so much easier if the fucker had the good courtesy to just be dead instead of transferred and making things complicated.

Bede snorted, ranks still slipping back and forth.  “That’s your problem now, that fucking name and Keeler and all his problems, and good fucking luck with all of it, I don’t want it.  Came to see if you’d figured out the crew database and all that shit yet.”

“Got it fine,” Encke said warily, not interested in begging for help and handing Bede a way to undermine him right off the bat.  “What about Keeler?  You ask for the transfer?”

Bede gave him a disgusted look.  “You’re fucking right I did.  Listen, son—ha! Sir, listen, _sir_ —he’s a fucking basket case and he flies like a crazy.  But I heard you already found out about that this morning.”

Encke cursed himself out again, swore he wasn’t going to let himself look like a green idiot on the flight deck again.  “What’s wrong with him?  Psych case?” he said instead.  Another Caliban, another Malachi, Encke didn’t much care for walking in on Keeler limp and going cold in the bathroom with his wrists slashed in the shower, he’d done that enough already, not that command would give a fuck unless Keeler’s flying got erratic, but if he had a pattern Encke could see about pushing for an evaluation and getting a new lead navigator in the mean time.  See who kept up then.

Bede snorted again.  “Probably.  Thinks his dick is bigger than everyone else’s, he’s a fucking control freak,” Bede said.  “All he wants from a fighter is a no-sir yessir, and he’ll make you fucking miserable if you think any different.  Thinks we’re all just a bunch of monkeys who push buttons and suck cock, he needs to get laid.”

Encke gave him a level look, thinking better of getting pulled into this bullshit if Bede was just trying to get him to do the dirty work of getting back at Keeler for something.  Six all over again if he wasn’t careful.  Just because Bede had always been more subtle didn’t mean he wasn’t just as much of an asshole as any other fighter with a grudge. “Did you fuck him?” Encke asked.

“Fuck no, but you and me are probably the only ones who haven’t.  You want my advice, I’d keep my dick to myself if I were you, word is he’s gotten more than a couple former fucks royally fucked, if you know what I mean, and fuck only knows what he’s picked up from his little harem over there,” Bede said, jerking his head at the door and the direction of Keeler’s office with the stream of navigators and assistants going in and out all morning.

Encke glanced from the door back to Bede, and finally dismissed him before he heard anything else he didn’t need to know.  

He hadn’t heard anything about Keeler fucking the navigators, but everyone knew the lead fighter was supposed to take advantage of his position, so why not the navigators too, if their academy training was anything like basic had been.  Keeler didn’t look like much, but Fifty hadn’t looked like much either until Encke had stopped thinking with his dick long enough to think about it.  He pushed that thought away and got back to reviewing intelligence reports, determined not to let Keeler make a fool of him.

* * *

Keeler was there when he finally made it back to the room that night, exhausted and sore and stinking, everyone belowdecks thinking the changeover between lieutenants was a good time to settle old fights and start new ones, and just the sight of Keeler sitting cross legged up on the top bunk, tapping out orders nice and comfortable with a glass of whiskey balanced on his knee, was enough to piss Encke off as soon as he walked in the door.  Keeler didn’t look up as he came in, just went right on tapping out his work as if Encke was just a new piece of furniture.  Encke kicked his boots across the room and left them lying there, just to put a mark on the room.

“Pretty nice contraband,” he said, eyeing the bottle by Keeler’s knee.  If rules were that lax for officers, he’d have to look into getting his own bottle from somewhere, especially if most days were going to be this shitty.

“I”m sure you’d know the difference,” Keeler said, sounding exhausted and bored, frowning at his computer, but Encke didn’t miss the way his long fingers tightened around the cup.

“Enough to know thirty-year single malt is too rich for my blood,” Encke said, not bothering to hide his contempt as he stripped for the shower.  Keeler hadn’t bothered to try making this work, so neither would he.  Fuck Keeler and his prejudices, maybe Encke had never tasted a good scotch but he sure as fuck knew the difference between what he could afford and what he couldn’t, and why Keeler would never deign to pour him any.

He could feel Keeler’s eyes on him as he stripped, the blond little bastard not bothering to look him in the eye when he had something to say but fine with watching the show once he was naked.  He ignored Keeler’s looks, grabbing a change of clothes as he went for the head so he could avoid getting eyed up when he was out of the shower.  Just because he’d been paired up with some smarmy little navigator who thought this whole fucking thing was a game didn’t mean he had to play along.

When he was out, his royal highness Keeler was putting away his whiskey, giving him the briefest of looks before shutting the drawer and turning away.  “You think you’ll manage better tomorrow?” Keeler asked quietly, brushing past him to the bunks, and Encke had just fucking had it.

He shoved Keeler back against the wall, one hand on Keeler’s chest and one on the wall next to his head, just enough to make Keeler wonder what else he might do, just enough to give him a little scare and make him watch his mouth.  If one of them had to get pushed around, it wasn’t going to be Encke.

“Maybe you thought that was a pretty cute joke for the first time out, make me look like a fucking idiot, but you’re done with your little games next time we’re out.  If you pull that shit again—“

Keeler pushed his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest, staring Encke down even though Keeler was half his size.  “Or what?  You’ll fuck me until I learn to follow orders?” Keeler demanded, pissed and not afraid of him for a second, just as cold as Thirty had been.

Encke stared at him, caught off guard with his bluff called.  “That what this is all about?  I heard about you.  What do you do, pick out whoever you want to fuck and then get him pissed off enough to shove you around how you want, but you’re too much of a pussy to ask for?  Or do you just get off on your little power games seeing how fast you can get a big dumb colonial on a leash?”

“I don’t fuck anyone who thinks it’s about control.  You want a navigator who’s into that and I can send you back where you came from,” Keeler said, standing there with his arms crossed, frowning up at Encke, who glared back down at him.  He wasn’t about to force the issue, but one of them had to be in charge between them, and he wasn’t going to get pushed around by a navigator, especially not with the threat of getting transferred back down and fuck only knew what would happen to him then, all the other fighters with Bede and Nereid circling for the kill once he was back belowdecks.  “So were you going to teach me a lesson or not, fighter?” Keeler said, flat and mocking.

Encke’s hand curled on the wall next to Keeler’s head, his level look just daring Encke to try something.  “You smug little shit, I’ll show you who—“

“If you’re going to do it, you might as well kill me after because all hell is going to come down on you either way.  What’s it worth to you?”

“Jesus fuck, you _are_ fucking crazy,” Encke spat, shoving away from him, pissed at everything for sticking him with the crazy ones every time.  Keeler watched him with flat eyes, and whether he looked pleased or pissed, Encke couldn’t tell, but Keeler had won this one.

“Then remember to take your dramamine tomorrow, because I was going easy on you today,” Keeler said, and Encke spent the night glaring up at the bottom of Keeler's bunk.


	18. Encke

Patrol the next morning wasn’t as bad with the dramamine, and Encke was grudgingly grateful for Keeler and his pills, especially after he saw Keeler down half a pill himself.  Bede watched them across the hanger, raising an eyebrow as Encke followed out on Keeler’s heels, trailing him out of the hanger to his office.  Watched him the day after and the day after, as Encke’s stomach heaved every time he climbed out and put his feet on something solid after Keeler’s acrobatics, still not able to keep up, but not about to let anyone see it.

It was a fucking boring routine, but at least it was a routine, and one that meant Keeler hadn’t decided to kick him back belowdecks for being an asshole.  Fly the patrol, fly routine hull inspections, get flipped around and shaken to hell when they scrambled during an attack and then put his boots on the deck, one in front of each other, hurrying to keep up with Keeler’s sure stride toward his office after to run and rerun the recordings, to go over and over again what had gone wrong and who needed more training.

The only breaks in routine came when something bad happened, when fuel lines leaked, when some team started a fistfight after patrol because one ship clipped a little too close to another on the return, when Encke had to wade in and break heads and let Keeler breeze off to the nice quiet of his office while Encke was left to deal with the bullshit.  Barely a week and he was already sick of the job, sick of Keeler and sick of not being good at something for the first time in his life.

He caught up with Keeler after the fistfight was sorted, rolling over in his head the ways to pick a fight over Keeler’s rough landings, sure he’d be able to win this one with the mechanic’s report about the metal stress in the landing struts being in favor of a softer landing. 

He found Keeler in a quiet corridor on the way to central, pinned against the wall by some fighter and practically being fucked in public.  Encke put a hand on the fighter’s shoulder to shove him away, ready to give Keeler a piece of his mind.  Then felt like an asshole as soon as he caught Keeler’s relieved look, covered quickly by Keeler’s blank professionalism.

“Take a walk, brother, you’ll get your turn,” Kratos said, turning back to Keeler with a wicked look.  Encke spun him back around and punched him in the mouth.

“Get the fuck away from him and don’t you ever fucking touch him again,” Encke snapped, shoving Kratos against the wall, looking forward to beating the shit out of him.  Another break in the routine, but a good one, no consequences and no guilt if he took out his frustrations with Keeler by covering Keeler’s back.

“Fuck, what’s it to you?” Kratos demanded, trying to shove his hands away.

“I’m your new fucking lieutenant and that’s _my_ fucking navigator.”

Kratos cursed and Encke brought back a fist to break his teeth in, but Keeler stopped him with a soft order.  “Let him go,” Keeler said.  “I called the MPs, he’ll get a week in the brig.”

Encke glared over his shoulder at Keeler looking neat and unruffled again, like this kind of thing happened all the time, but there were the two MPs looking dour and Encke had to stop himself from standing to attention for them.  So he shook Kratos one more time, pissed at him and Keeler and himself, and shoved Kratos at the MPs.

“You got pussy whipped fast,” Kratos sneered as they led him off.  “Lieutenant.”

Keeler brushed past him before Kratos was even gone, ready to leave it at that, but Encke followed him back to his office, not going to leave it at just that, not when it would get around before lunch how Keeler had humiliated him again.  Didn’t even have to lift a finger, Keeler had him on a short leash and he’d have no fucking authority by the time it got around.

“The fuck was that?  You want to get felt up by assholes like that?” Encke demanded as soon as the door closed, not dumb enough to pick a fight in the middle of central, but not smart enough to just let it drop.  He glared around Keeler’s office, bigger even than their room, with little desks for assistants and racks for data storage and displays covering the walls, a real office instead of some little closet with a desk jammed in it.  He hated that fucking place, hated having to be in it and be reminded that Keeler was more important and more necessary than he was.  “It hasn’t even been a week and you try to undermine me one more time—“

“What good do you think it does, chasing everyone off _your_ navigator?” Keeler asked, settling into his chair, his desk three times the size of Encke’s, covered with empty coffee cups and scribbled notes, tablets and monitors, all open to something different and inscrutable.  Keeler frowned and flicked something away off one of the tablets, a photo in the jumble of engine schematics, distracted for just a second until he turned his eyes back on Encke and kept him pinned there.  Like a fucking raw recruit, brought up in front of the sergeant to be made an example of.

Encke stayed standing, torn between the ingrained habit of standing to attention for the lieutenant and not wanting to give Keeler any deference to use against him, between needing the upperhand of size and intimidation and just wanting to sit the fuck down and get off his feet.  “It’ll teach him to keep his fucking hands to himself and not grope you up in the fucking hallway,” Encke snapped.  It should have been fucking obvious, unless Bede was right and Keeler was just begging to get felt up by anybody.

“And what about the next fighter who tries it?”

“He’ll have better heard what happened to the first one or—“

Keeler cut him off, talking over him quietly like Encke hadn’t even said anything.  “What about the next navigator he tries it on?  Or the next time he’s there and you’re not?”

Encke glared across the desk at Keeler and kept his mouth shut, because he knew exactly what happened when he turned his back.  Six had ended up dead because of it.

“If they’re only afraid of you, then I’m only safe so long as you’re there, and all the rest of my navigators aren’t safe at all.  Better for the fighters to be afraid of us rather than just of you,” Keeler said, and Encke would have been more pissed off by it if Keeler didn’t sound so fucking exhausted just saying it, glancing down at his desk like he couldn’t look Encke in the eye and say it.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see to some things,” Keeler said, turning back to his bank of monitors, and it was a dismissal even if it wasn’t exactly an order.

* * *

Cassius found him a bottle that night and he didn’t ask where.  It was no thirty year scotch and he’d be lucky if it didn’t make him blind, but it was better than nothing.  He and Cassius drank to not being dead yet, and then he dismissed Cassius, since they weren’t friends and it wouldn’t do them any good to pretend they were.

So he got a tray from the mess and ate dinner alone in the empty bare room, no sign that anyone lived in it besides his boots where he kicked them every night, Keeler’s things tucked neatly away in an inverse of the disaster of his office.  If it was lonely, at least he could have a drink and read in quiet, with none of Keeler’s earnest sweet assistants asking if he’d had time to look at those crew reassignment reports and could he kindly initial them and also please hurry up with the requisition orders and had he finished that report on the simulations they’d suggested he send three days ago, all the fucking paperwork he never fucking asked for.

Keeler found him curled up reading in his pajamas like a teenager after crew lights out, the room dark except for his tablet screen and the little light on the underside of the bunk, so late he’d started to wonder if Keeler was coming back at all that night or if he’d just sleep in his office.  Which would have suited him fine, but Keeler looked as fucking done with everyone else’s bullshit as he felt, and he wondered if he’d be as fucked in the head as Keeler by the end of it.

So he held up the glass of shitty liquor.  “You want a drink?”  Better that than drinking alone, or sitting there while Keeler got out the good bottle of scotch and didn't deign to offer him any.

Keeler looked him up and down, looked the bottle up and down, and Encke kept his face blank, waiting for some snide comment about colonial moonshine not being good enough for his highness.  “What is it?” Keeler asked doubtfully.

“Fuck if I know,” Encke shrugged.  “Tastes like licorice and and feet.  You want some or not?”

Keeler took a little breath, and Encke was so fucking sick of Keeler’s bullshit condescension that he almost didn’t believe it when Keeler dropped to sit next to him and waved for a drink.

“It’s been a long day,” Keeler shrugged, starting to unbutton his jacket.  “I’m going to strangle Puck if he nags me one more time about the requisition orders, I’m so tired of initialing things I could scream.”

“Which one’s Puck?” Encke asked as he got up for their one other glass, the one Keeler had had his expensive whiskey in the other night.  He gave it a quick rinse in the bathroom sink, so Keeler could appreciate every fine note of whatever colonial bathtub ouzo Cassius had scrounged up.

“The annoying one,” Keeler called over the water.

Encke brought the glass back and settled back on one end of the bunk, a warm little boat of light in the dark room.  “Doesn’t narrow it down much.”

Keeler snorted.  “The _chipper_ one,” he said as Encke poured.

He handed Keeler the two fingers of ouzo, watching his reaction.  “Yeah, that little shit needs to tone it down a couple pegs.”

Keeler gave him a half smile and knocked back his liquor.  He made a face but didn’t cough.  “Ugh.  It really does taste like feet, doesn’t it?”  Encke just shrugged, didn’t say anything when Keeler held out his glass.  Didn’t think anything of Keeler glancing down at his tablet while he poured until Keeler said something about it.  Then he wished he’d closed the novel when Keeler came in, but none of his other navigators had been so damn nosy.  Or none of them had cared to look.  “Are you really reading Anna Karenina?” Keeler asked.

He shouldn't have let it get to him, shouldn't have let Keeler get a rise out of him so easily, but it just never fucking stopped, snide little remarks here and there, putting him in his place.  “Not as dumb as I look, am I?”  He handed the glass back, hoping Keeler would take the hint and knock it back fast, let them both go to bed and stop trying to pretend they were friends.

Keeler just shrugged, though, didn’t make to get up and leave him in peace.  “Fighters just aren’t usually much for reading.  Or talking.”

“Yeah?  You ever try talking to one?  Or they only teach you how to yank the leash at academy?”

“I’m not as awful as I look, am I?” Keeler said, and they both looked each other up and down, trying to find an answer for that.

“You ever read it?” Encke asked, changing the subject.  Might as well take the olive branch if there was one on offer, since Keeler hadn’t decided to transfer him yet.

Keeler shrugged again, sipped at his ouzo this time.  “Watched part of it and turned it off.  I don’t like tragedies,” Keeler said.

Encke cast around for something with a happy ending.  “What about Pride and Prejudice, or, uh, Great Expectations?” Encke tried.  “Or Middlemarch?”

Keeler gave him a look, halfway between laughing and disbelief.  “Have you read anything less than a thousand pages long?”

Encke shrugged.  “Midsummer Night’s Dream?  They don’t give us a bunch of fucking calculations to do in off-hours, there’s not a whole fuck of a lot else to do besides read.  Dickens is boring as fuck, but Dumas is pretty good, lots of swordfights.”

“But Shakespeare, really?  You’ve read Shakespeare?”

“Cheaper than porn,” Encke said, trying to make a joke of it and not be offended that Keeler thought he was too dumb to read in the first place.  He was from Earth, they all thought like that.  Encke just never usually had to talk to a navigator long enough to deal with it.

Keeler gave a choked little laugh, trying to keep some distance between them, and Encke pretended he hadn’t noticed, pleased with finding some kind of personality in there.  He poured them both another drink, fingers brushing Keeler’s as he handed the glass back.  Keeler looked at it thoughtfully, glancing up at Encke and back down, thinking something over.  “Anything you’d recommend?” he asked.

“Taming of the Shrew,” Encke said with a straight face, wondering how long it would take for Keeler to get the joke.  Keeler had the hair for Katherina, but he was a hell of a Petruchio.

It didn’t take Keeler nearly long enough to get the joke, and Encke should have known better and not been such a dumb fuck.  Keeler shot him a look that could have killed, cold and the walls slamming down again between them.  “I’m not an idiot, I know what that means,” he said, and Encke cursed himself out for being exactly as dumb as he looked.  Keeler stood up, looking disgusted and offended, and if getting shoved against the wall by assholes like Kratos was a regular thing for him, then he had every right to be.

“Meant, uh, meant the other way,” Encke mumbled, not sure how to apologize for it.  “Meant you’d be a good Petruchio.”  He scratched his head, Keeler’s blank look making it even more awkward.  “The guy that does the taming.  Of the, uh, the shrew,” he said, gesturing at himself with his glass.  “Wasn’t a very good joke.”

“No, not really,” Keeler said slowly.  He looked down at the glass still in his hand.

“Look, do you want to just get this over with and tell me to go fuck myself?” Encke said.  “Cause I’m getting pretty sick of the send-you-back-where-you-came-from speech, and it sounds like you are too.”

Keeler took a breath, not looking at him.  “Scipio’s already been reassigned, but you could go back to being an Atlas or a Dante or a Samson, you don’t have to be Encke.  Do you want to transfer back?” he asked, still looking at his drink.  

“Fuck yes.  If I’d known what a fucking hassle this promotion was going to be, I’d have told you to go fuck yourself the first day.”

“Oh,” Keeler said, turning his face toward the dark of the room, and Encke got ready to be told to have his shit out by morning.  “You’re good at it, you know,” Keeler said quietly.  “You’ve kept up better than any of the rest.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” Encke said.

Keeler just shrugged.  “I’ve had a couple fighters, I think I’d know the difference,” he said, and Encke wondered what else he meant by that.  Keeler wasn’t so bad when he wasn’t trying to put on a front for somebody, they could have made it work that way.  Both of them would probably be less tense if they got laid, anyway, and even if it made things messy in the longterm, they could stop snapping at each other in the short term.  Or at least fight for different reasons.

Keeler eased himself back down to sit on the bunk, looking exhausted and breakable, hair hanging across the side of his face.  He threw back the rest of his ouzo, and for the first time, Encke could see why everybody wanted to fuck him, or at least say they’d fucked him.  He put on a hardass front, but he was just as run ragged as Encke was, maybe more, and here he was with his jacket hanging open looking so fucking vulnerable.  

So Encke leaned in to kiss him.  Keeler’s breath caught, a little hitch as Encke smoothed a hand over his hair and over his jaw, teasing at Keeler’s cool lips.  Could have been better without both of them tasting like the shitty ouzo, but some of the tension eased out of Keeler, at least.

He moved to put a hand on Keeler’s knee when Keeler pulled away, not looking at him.  “I, um, I don’t think this is a very good idea,” he said quietly.  “I’ve, um, never really done this.  This isn’t a good idea.”

“Baby, it’s okay,” Encke said, stroking his knee.  If all this had been just a scared virgin thing, just a front to pretend like he knew how to be in control, Encke could deal with that.  “I’m not gonna bite you, we can take it slow.”

But Keeler brushed Encke’s hand off, pushing himself up, holding himself out of arms reach and looking more pissed at Encke than he had at Kratos.  “No.  I’m not interested.  Ever.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?”

Keeler glared at him, putting up the walls between them again.  “Nothing’s wrong with me,” he said, and this time Encke knew he’d stuck his foot in it good, even if he couldn’t quite tell what he’d done.  Keeler pulled his jacket tighter around himself for a moment before turning away into the dark of the room.  Encke turned off his lights as Keeler stripped for bed, giving them both some privacy for their separate embarrassments.


	19. Encke

They dressed in awkward silence the next morning, Keeler moving from shower to dresser, braiding his wet hair half naked like Encke wasn’t even there, like the night before hadn’t happened.  Encke made a step toward him, mostly to get a uniform from the dresser, partly to make Keeler look at him, but Keeler just stepped around him, not looking at him, staying out of reach.

“Look, I’m sorry about last night,” Encke started.  “Didn’t think you were a virgin, I just—“

Keeler cut him off with a look, the first time that morning, and it stopped Encke in his tracks.  “You heard everyone else had fucked me, so figured you might as well too?” Keeler asked.  Encke stood there dumb, because of course he’d thought that, but it was something else having Keeler throw it in his face.  “Please, did you think I hadn’t heard?” Keeler asked, shrugging into his jacket.  “Everyone’s heard,” he said quietly, hands busy so he wouldn’t have to look Encke in the face.

“I didn’t mean—“  Encke reached to grab him by the arm, make Keeler stop and look at him again, so they could start this over, without so many fucking assumptions and bullshit, but Keeler just pulled away from him and keyed the door open.

“I’ll see you in simulation this afternoon,” Keeler said quietly, his pale braid falling over his shoulder and brushing his cheek, and closed the door behind him.

* * *

He didn’t see Keeler for days after that, going on almost two weeks with no sign that Keeler had been back to their room.  Would have thought he was dead except for patrol, for simulation, for the briefest of exchanges in the ship before Keeler disappeared into central, his bunk neatly made regulation and orderly day after day as if no one had slept in it.

“Lieutenant Keeler’s _very_ busy, sir, can I make you an appointment?” Puck asked sweetly when he made to walk into Keeler’s office after patrol.  Encke stood toe to toe with the little shit, shorter even than Keeler and hard as rock candy, sweet as could be.  Puck just smiled vacantly up at him, and they both knew how fast Encke would get busted down if he tried to push past Puck to demand Keeler see him.

So he let it drop, ignored the glimpses of Keeler he caught as they passed on their way to their separate offices, and just let Keeler’s sweet, earnest assistants take his initials and his paperwork and his frustrations back to Keeler, since he was just one more useless piece of equipment shoved into a closet until some important little navigator wanted something.

“How’s the probation?  _Lieutenant_?” Bede asked quietly a few days later, looking up from his workstation as Encke passed through central for a meeting with the commander.  Encke looked him up and down, wishing he’d thought to assign the asshole somewhere he didn’t have to see him all the damn time.  Harder to keep an eye on, but better for his blood pressure.  He made a note for Cassius to assign Bede’s squad extra laps and made his appointment with the Commander.  No reason to get pulled into a pissing contest with someone who didn’t matter, at least not until Keeler decided to throw him back with the rest of the trash.

* * *

He didn’t hear about it until after, Keeler collapsing in his office alone, late, when he should have been back at the room, when everyone else was gone.  When he should have been with Encke, when he should have had someone to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't work himself to death.

Exhaustion, medical said, or at least that was what they’d been told to say to Encke.  Overwork, long hours, rest and vitamin supplement necessary, no chronic condition.  He might never have heard about it if Cassius hadn’t tipped him to the rumor going around that he’d walked in on Keeler fucking a navigator and tried to beat the shit out of both of them, giving Keeler a heart attack or a stroke or the vapors or some shit.  As it was, medical seemed to think it was at least likely, sending him to Puck, who sent him to medical, who sent him back to Puck, just trying to track down Keeler and find out what the fuck had happened.

In the end he didn’t have to track down Keeler, when Puck finally walked him back to their room the next night, Keeler looking pale and drawn and pissed off.  He gave Encke a glance and straightened his back, putting on the front.

Puck probably thought he was being real fucking subtle, putting himself between Keeler and Encke while Keeler shrugged out of his jacket.  Encke didn’t miss the way Puck glanced between them, watching the muscles of Keeler’s back move through his undershirt, watching for something, like Keeler needed a goddamn bodyguard or chaperone to protect him from the dumbfuck colonials.

They both pointedly ignored him, Keeler giving Puck soft orders with Puck taking notes, still pushing on whatever engine refit program the navigators were running even though it was well past the end of shift and crew lights out.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Encke demanded when neither of them would say anything to him.

Puck watched him too closely as Keeler got ready for bed, and if Keeler wasn’t fucking Puck, then Puck was fucking Keeler, Encke was sure of it, no reason for them to be so close if it wasn’t true.  Sweet, vacant-faced navigators would suit Keeler, give him someone safe to control and push around, someone who wouldn’t push back.  “It’s not your problem,” Keeler said, not looking at him.

Encke pushed himself up from the bottom bunk, shouldering past Puck’s disapproving frown.  “It’s my fucking problem if you don’t show up for days and end up in—“

“ _I’m_ not your problem,” Keeler said quietly, and Encke took a step back.  He glanced at Puck, who somehow managed to stand up under that look everyday, and the little shit just shrugged.  Keeler waved Puck out, curling up on the top bunk without another word, his shoulders stiff and not sleeping even though he said nothing.

Puck’s message flashed up as Encke went back to his reading, orders from Keeler and orders from his assistants, better to have stayed where he was.  _Doctor’s orders—no undue stress, no unnecessary patrols.  Lt. Keeler will be very busy this week, please see me if you need an appointment._

Or _, fuck off, fighter, leave him alone._

So Keeler went from avoiding him by hiding in his office to avoiding him in their room, hiding behind his glass of scotch every night, two-thirds water and a thimbleful of scotch taken with him to his bunk, where he nursed it until all hours and slept fuck knew when.  No more snide remarks, at least.  Keeler said nothing, so Encke said nothing, so they just did the necessary bare minimum and Encke pretended he didn’t notice Keeler watching him every time they were alone together, watching him just as close as Bede watched whenever they had to be in public together.  

Keeler was blank as ever, and Encke frowned at him the few minutes a day they were alone until he thought better of it, remembering the blank professional boredom Keeler had used to hide behind when that asshole Kratos had felt him up.  So he left Keeler his blankness and his space, wondering how scared Keeler must have been by a little kiss to draw the walls up like this.  Fuck knew what kind of problems Keeler had that got him to twenty-four a scared virgin, hiding behind his assistants and his work to live like a monk.  

But Keeler wasn’t his problem, and he had plenty of other bullshit to worry about besides what the fuck was wrong with him.

* * *

It was waiting for him a few days later, an automated system message from central, could have been anything from a shipwide announcement to a reminder from Puck to file those fucking requisition orders.  He opened it first, so he could tell that little bastard Puck to stop sending him useless crap when he already had enough to do.

A photo of Keeler, pale hair trailing over his closed eyes, a black-gloved hand twisted in his hair.

Sucking cock.

Beautiful and sweet and a fucking liar.  _I’ve never really done this_.  As bad as Fifty, a born liar, sucking cock and playing martyr to get what he wanted.

Encke ground his jaw and looked at it for too long, and he’d have been a fucking liar if he didn’t admit he’d thought about doing exactly that, putting Keeler’s snide mouth to good use, twisting that stupid long hair around his hand and showing him who was in charge.  But someone else had already done that, from the looks of it.

He stared at it too long, so long Cassius came in with reports or disciplinary signoffs or fuck knew what.  Encke deleted the photo out of the message and pushed his tablet across the desk.

“Find out who sent this.”

Cassius took a breath, glancing from him to the message.  “Sir, I don’t think you want—“

“I said find the fucker who sent it and nail his ass to the wall,” Encke snapped, not wanting to hear it or know what Cassius knew about the message.  “I’m not fucking around.  I want him in the brig for unauthorized access and fucking around with security.  Understand me, sergeant?”

“Yessir.”

Encke sat there drumming his fingers on the desk until he was called away to deal with even more bullshit.


	20. Encke

Cassius was fast, but he didn’t have the news Encke wanted to hear.  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Encke said when Cassius brought him the disciplinary report to sign that afternoon.  “Kratos doesn’t work in central and he couldn’t encrypt a message if his life depended on it, there’s no fucking way he did this.”

Cassius just shrugged.  “Security said it came from his network address and he confessed to it when the MPs tracked him down.  They said they’re dropping it unless there’s evidence of malicious intent.”  Of course there was malicious intent, somebody was pissing around trying to stir up shit, make him beat the shit out of Keeler or mark his territory or fuck knew what.  Just not the kind of malicious intent security cared about, no theft of data or attempts to seed a virus.  So Kratos would get a demotion, time in the brig, and whatever he’d been promised by Bede.

* * *

He found Bede in the hanger late in the shift, taking a smoke break while his navigator bitched about the wiring of their ship.  Cassius followed, hovering just out of range, waiting for orders.  Waiting, Encke thought, in case things got ugly.

“No rest for the wicked, is there, Lieutenant?” Bede asked as he came up.

Encke gestured for him to put out the cigarette, done with all the bullshit and backstabbing.  “What the fuck is your problem with Keeler?” he demanded

Bede smiled lazily as he ground out his smoke, glancing up to where the navigator worked.  “Keeler must have you on a shorter leash than he did me, _lieutenant_ ,” he said, putting just enough sneer in it for Encke to hear it, but not enough to get him for insubordination without looking petulant.  “You haven’t heard about his little pet project yet, have you?  They’re revamping the engines so the navigators can fly them from the nice snug safety of the ship, the little bastards won’t have to risk their purebred asses like us anymore.”  Bede lost the smile then.  “Just load up the ship with a monkey to push the buttons, no more losing precious navigators.  Or get rid of the monkey all together, and then we can be cannon fodder with the rest of the infantry.”

“Fucking around with Keeler isn’t going to stop that if command’s decided it, and who the fuck are you to be pissed off if it makes for less casualties—“

“It was Keeler’s idea,” Bede shrugged.  “Came up with it so none of his precious little navigators would ever have to deal with a dirty colonial ever again, less _navigator_ casualties with no such fucking guarantee for us.  I didn’t sign up to be some dumbfuck dead infantryman, that little shit deserves whatever he gets.”

“You’re gonna be a dumbfuck dead fighter if you don’t quit fucking around with my navigator.”

Bede smiled slowly.  “ _Your_ navigator, huh?  I heard you had a tough time keeping your girlfriend in line in basic, you think you’re gonna do any better with this one?  Or did Kratos’ photo finally give you the balls to show Keeler—“

Encke curled his fist, aching to punch the bastard just once for the satisfaction of it, but all he needed was proof that Bede was talking shit about Keeler or himself.  So instead of punching Bede’s teeth in, he twisted the bastard around by the arm and shoved him face first against his own ship, gesturing for Cassius.  Three months on KP, two weeks of extra training, the maximum he could give out for insubordination without filing a disciplinary report and getting the commander involved.  Bede squawked about it, the navigator bitched about it, and Encke didn’t feel any better about anything.

* * *

Encke sat on the bottom bunk that night, drumming his fingers on his knee while Keeler folded his laundry.  Stripped to his undershirt in the warm room, Keeler pointedly ignored him even though the last fifteen minutes had been the longest they’d spent in the room together not asleep.  Keeler had shit to do, and talking to colonials wasn’t on that list.

He was so fucking skinny, pretty and sweet except for his mouth, and Encke thought more than once about pinning Keeler up against the dresser and making him get over his shyness or snideness or whatever the fuck his problem was.  “Why’d your last fighter ask for a transfer?” Encke asked.  

Keeler shot him a confused look and went back to his folding.  “He didn’t ask for a transfer, I had to have him reassigned.  He was being obstructionist, he refused to help with the engine refit, so he had to go.  I need someone I can work with.”

“He act like an asshole from the start?”

Keeler laughed a little at that, throwing Encke half a smile over his shoulder while he snapped out the wrinkles in the shirt he was folding.   “He was fine at first, just . . . “ Keeler shrugged.  “We didn’t get along, he didn’t like the engine project, so he had to go.”

“That’s not the way he tells it,” Encke said slowly, watching Keeler’s reaction.  Keeler just glanced at him and shrugged again.  A little more tense this time, a little frown, he didn’t say anything to that, avoiding it.  “He said—“

“I can guess, thank you,” Keeler snapped.  “I heard it from him, I don’t need to hear it again.”

“You didn’t transfer him because he got to know you a little too well?”

Keeler froze, steadying himself with fingertips on the dresser.  He took one deep breath, then another, squaring his shoulders, putting his professionalism back on like a jacket, hiding behind it.  “So you finally saw them.  I’m surprised it took this long,” Keeler said, and Encke didn’t want to know why Keeler knew right away what he was talking about.

“The fuck do mean _them_?  There’s other ones?”  Encke stood up finally, wanting to shake the rest of Keeler’s secrets out of him, not quite trusting himself to not do it.

Keeler shrugged, his shoulders gone stiff, not quite looking at Encke but watching him sidelong as he kept busy with his folding, not as precise, his hands shaky.  “A couple.  There’s a video too, I’m told it’s very good.  What’s it matter?”

“Thought you said you were a virgin,” Encke said slowly.

“Why does it matter to _you_?”

Encke glared at his back, because of course it fucking mattered, but there wasn’t any explaining to Keeler why it mattered.  Navigators didn’t understand about maintaining position, not with all their handholding bullshit, and Keeler especially wouldn’t understand with his little harem of assistants, Puck trailing after him everywhere.  “It’s my damn business if it makes me look like a fucking idiot.  Everybody belowdecks says you got one of your fighters transferred after he fucked you,” Encke said.  “Says you told him you were a virgin too, then cried about it after.  You do this for fun, fuck around with people’s lives and throw them out when you’re done?  You planning on doing that to me?”

Keeler’s hands tightened around the shirt in his hand.  “Are you planning on being a rapist?” he asked, his first assumption every time.

“What the _fuck_ does that have to do with it?” Encke demanded, taking a step towards him, pissed off with all his assumptions and contradictions and fucking problems, like any of this was Encke’s fault when he was trying to put a stop to it.  “You don’t want pictures like that going around, file a fucking complaint, having fucking command deal with it like you said—“

“What do you think would happen if I filed a complaint?” Keeler snapped at his laundry, shying away from Encke without looking at him.  “I’d get written up for _conduct unbecoming an officer_ , maybe demoted, for ‘allowing myself be photographed in a compromising situation.’  And nothing else would change.”  Keeler frowned down at his clean white jacket.  “I already tried,” he added quietly.

“So why’d you let—“

“I _didn’t_.”  Keeler looked over his shoulder finally, breath catching when he realized how close Encke’d gotten but not moving.  Scared frozen, and Encke hated him right then for how much like Fifty he looked that last night of leave, sure he was about to have the shit beaten out of him.

Encke glared at him, the full weight of it sinking in.  Keeler took shallow breaths, finally recovering enough to glare back, his front breaking and pulling back up, trying to pretend there wasn’t anything wrong with the whole fucked up situation.  “I’ll fucking kill him,” Encke said.

“Is that supposed to be chivalry?”  Keeler laughed, sarcastic and short, trying to avoid the subject.  “What’s that going to fix?”

“He’ll be fucking dead and you won’t have to think about him any more.  It’ll fix everything.”

Keeler gave him a tired look.  “That’s not how it works.  The photos will still be there, everyone’s seen.”

“What’s his fucking name, at least?  Was it that fucker Bede?”

“It wasn’t Bede, Bede just . . . found out about it.”  Keeler sighed, rubbing his face, and Encke watched him, waiting.  Keeler finally gave him another sigh.  “It was my first fighter, the one I was promoted with, a long time ago.  I don’t know what his name is now, I didn’t keep track of him after the transfer.  I didn’t want to think about him again.”

“Then what _was_ his name, I’ll track him down.”

Keeler glanced at the floor, thinking it over, avoiding something.  “Encke,” he said finally, and Encke couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be a sigh, or an order, or the beginning of something.

“What?” he demanded.  He’d pull it out of Keeler if he had to, he was going to put a stop to all this bullshit and show everybody the consequences of fucking around with his navigator like this.

“That was his name.  Your Scipio already has a new Hannibal, you knew that.  It’s neater to keep the names consistent with the navigator, so—all the ones before you were Encke, all the ones after you will be Encke, you’re all the same.  As long as I’m a Keeler, I’ll always have an Encke.”  Keeler shrugged, lips pressed together.  “It’s just the way things are.”

“That’s . . . pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Keeler said.  Encke looked him up and down for a minute, wanting to put an arm around Keeler like he’d done for Scipio and Caliban sometimes, but Keeler wasn’t so soft as the other navigators, more like a fighter, needing to look like he was in control even when he was breaking inside, and Encke tried to think of what he’d do if another fighter had just told him the same thing.  Tried to think about what he’d want if one of his navigators had taken pictures of him and spread them around.

So he took Keeler’s half folded jacket from him and tossed it on the dresser.  “You need a drink, the laundry’ll be there tomorrow,” Encke said, cutting off Keeler’s protest.  “I definitely need a drink.  No Shakespeare jokes this time.”

Keeler looked him up and down as Encke got out the ouzo and started pouring.  “You promise?”

“Yeah, there’s always more laundry and I sure ain’t folding it for you,” Encke said, just to break the tension, and Keeler finally took the glass with a little half smile.  Encke sat on the bed, Keeler looking for something in the bottom of his ouzo before he sat, almost the full length of the bunk away.  “You ever tell anybody about it?” Encke asked, since he was so shit with dealing with it.

“Puck, some of it, the commander, some of it, the psychiatrist, most of it.  I’m not a psych case,” Keeler said too fast when he caught Encke’s look, and Encke knew he shouldn’t have let it show so easily.  “I wasn’t lying to you when I said I’d never done—that I’d never kissed before, not, um, not when it ended well.  You seem nice enough, I just—I’m not very comfortable with any of that, my first fighter, the one that took the photos—“ Keeler cut himself off, taking another drink.  “He was—pushy.”

_Pushy_ , Encke knew what that meant.  Six had been _pushy_.  “You mean he was a fucking rapist,” Encke said, hand tight on his glass, swearing he’d find the asshole and break his teeth.

Keeler shrugged, eyes on the floor and looking miserable.  “It was just kissing at first, and then it wasn’t.  I’d never been with anyone before, I thought that was just how things were.  I guess I liked it, he was exciting.  We were—“ Keeler cleared his throat.  “We were in bed one night, and he said I couldn’t keep being a tease, and then he just didn’t stop.  When I went in to report it, the commander said I shouldn’t have been in bed with him if I didn’t want it to happen, so he wouldn’t file a report or give me a transfer.  The . . . photos are from after.”

Encke took a deep breath, feeling sick, finally realizing what he’d seen, sick with himself for thinking he’d want to do the same to Keeler.  Sick thinking about how long he’d looked at it, how much longer he might have looked at it, pissed off with Keeler for being afraid of a little kiss, thinking about what it would be like to have his hand twisted in Keeler’s hair like that.  He took a drink, tried not to think about that.  “How long’d they leave you with him?”

Keeler licked his lips, just a little.  “Almost a year.  Everyone said we were a good team.  I was flying reckless trying to get us both killed.”

“Shit.  Why didn’t you just punch the fucker?  You just lay there and take it every time?”

Keeler glared at him suddenly, and Encke wanted to shake him, not his fault Keeler couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted to be treated like a fighter or a navigator.  “Do you know how many navigators end up in medical for punching back?” Keeler snapped, sounding pissed, and Encke knew he’d stuck his foot in it again.  “There’s one every couple of months who ‘has a bad fall’ and command never talks about it because it would be _bad for morale_.  There was one in my graduating class who got his nose broken so badly no one could recognize him after he told his fighter no too many times.  He’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison because he cut his fighter’s throat in his sleep.  So yes, I _just took it_ every time.”

Keeler pushed himself up from the bed, yanking his jacket on.  “Where the fuck are you going?” Encke demanded, Keeler not looking at him.  “It’s the middle of the fucking night.”  He got up, putting out a hand to stop Keeler and thought better of it when Keeler shuddered away from him.

“The office.  Unless you need to hear about how hard I got from it and tell me how bad I must have wanted it.  I understand fighters enjoy that sort of thing,” Keeler said, his voice tight as he shut the door between them.


	21. Encke

Encke paced the room, thinking about going after Keeler and trying to apologize even though he wasn’t quite sure for what, but decided against it.  Both of them pissed off and Keeler back to hiding in his office in the middle of the night wouldn’t end well, with a fight or worse in Keeler’s office, a big dumbfuck colonial chasing down a scared, broken navigator.  So he gave himself a headache overthinking it until he finally made himself just go the fuck to sleep, since Keeler was a grown man and didn’t need to be dragged back by the hair.

Didn’t see him all that day, just a glimpse of him as Encke hurried in and out of his own office, Puck closing the door to Keeler’s office when he caught Encke trying to catch a look.  So he took it out on Cassius instead, taking him to run laps until Encke was so fucking exhausted he could pretend he forgot why he should be so fucking pissed with himself.

Keeler came back precisely at the end of shift, sneaking back into his own room when Encke should still have been showering after training down on the fighter’s level, if he hadn’t been such a pussy about it and told Cassius to piss off early.  So he was there when Keeler came back, just out of the shower but thank fuck dressed or it all would have gone even worse than it did.  Keeler stood in the doorway briefly, touching the wall to keep himself upright and Encke saw him stumble just as the door closed.  Drunk, he’d have thought, if he didn’t know better.

Encke wasn’t fast enough, cursing as he reached out and missed, Keeler’s pretty pale hair spilled all over the floor where he’d fallen and his face drawn into a little pained frown, crumpled on his side where he’d tried to catch himself.  Encke crouched next to him, checked his pulse quick and brushed Keeler’s hair out of his face, his skin clammy and too pale.

“Keeler—fuck, Keeler, wake up,” he said, patting Keeler’s cool cheek, not sure whether he should shake him or pick him up or just call medical, but Keeler stirred a little.  Just fainted, then, nothing broken in the fall.  “Come on baby, wake up for me.”

Encke backed off as Keeler’s eyes fluttered and he moved to roll to his side, not quite able to get a hand under himself and push himself up.  So Encke got an arm under him and hauled him up, light as a feather but awkward, sure Keeler wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if he were awake.  Keeler made a little noise of protest as Encke set him down on the bottom bunk, no way of getting him into his own bed, but it was better than the floor.

Encke rubbed his eyes as he went for a damp cloth in the head, sure this wasn’t going to end well once Keeler woke up in his bed.  If he’d been trying not to act like a pushy asshole, it sure wouldn’t look like it now.

“Keeler, come on, wake up,” he said, settling on the edge of the bed next to where Keeler had curled on his side, wiping his face with the damp cloth.

He made an annoyed noise finally, frowning and pushing Encke’s hand away as he came to.  “Puck, I told you—“  Encke didn’t miss the scared look that passed over his face as his eyes came open and he realized who it was, frozen with his fingers on Encke’s wrist and Encke’s hand on his face, close enough to kiss and Keeler knew it.  Then it was gone, Keeler’s facade coming back as he tried to sit up.  “No, I’m fine—“

“Baby, you’re not fine, you fainted as soon as you got in the door.  I’m not gonna hurt you.”  Encke folded the cloth into Keeler’s hand and stood up.  “Unbutton your jacket, I’ll get you a drink.”

He didn’t miss the way Keeler froze up at that, but Keeler was damp with a cold sweat and the jacket wasn’t helping with his breathing, so he left to get a cup of water.  Keeler shied away from him when he brought it back, obediently fumbling with the buttons but weak as a kitten, and Encke tried to keep from touching Keeler’s skin as he helped him out of his jacket.  Tried to ignore the way Keeler shivered and swallowed back something as Encke got up and went to throw it on the dresser.

He fished around in Keeler’s drawer, looking for something to keep Keeler warm against the chill of the air, something to let him hide in, something to put one more layer between them.  He tossed one of Keeler’s sweatshirts back at him, staying as far away as he could in the little room with Keeler half dressed.

He turned his back, to give Keeler some privacy while he shrugged it on, if Keeler needed a little proof that he wasn’t going to get jumped.  He saw the bottle of scotch as he went to close the drawer, tucked in the back behind Keeler’s neatly folded shirts, the only thing out of place in the neat regulation laundry.  He pulled it out, figuring Keeler could use a little comfort, if that was the only personal thing he kept.  Better than ouzo, anyway.

“So’d you pick this up on shore leave or bring it with you?” Encke asked, changing the subject, pouring Keeler a little scotch in their second glass.

He glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch Keeler’s panicked look.  “Don’t—put it back, don’t—“ Keeler tried to push himself up out of the bunk, but fell back, hand pressed to his chest, breath coming short.  He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing.

“The fuck’s the matter, I’m just—“ 

Keeler gave him a pained look.  “Don’t, please, it’s—my dad gave it to me the day I shipped out, he said to save him the last drink for when I brought it back.  Just—don’t take any.”  Keeler swallowed hard, glancing away.  “Please,” he said, reduced to begging for this because it was the only thing left no one else had taken from him.

Encke glanced down at the bottle and the glass in his hand, and back to Keeler, superstitious, scared, and desperate, none of his false bravado now, and Encke finally got it.  Keeler, chased out of where ever he’d been hiding after Encke tried kissing him, curled up in his bunk with his watered down scotch, homesick and scared, because Encke had been such a jackass.  In the top bunk to begin with because he’d been expecting another Kratos or Bede, needing even a little protection from being yanked out of his bed with photos of it passed around by whatever asshole fighter he got who was stronger than him.  And Encke hadn’t done much to show he was any different.

Morgan would have liked Keeler, skinny and breakable and in need of coddling.  Encke capped the scotch, feeling like an asshole.  “Baby, I wasn’t taking anything, just getting you a drink.  I’m not—I don’t do that.”  He went to hand Keeler the glass, leaving the bottle on the dresser.  Keeler looked up at him, curled small and pressed as far into the corner as he could, protecting his back and trying to hide behind his knees.

He took the glass finally, fingers brushing Encke’s, icy cold and brittle.  “Oh,” he whispered, curling around the scotch.  He put his nose in the glass, taking slow breaths but not unwinding even a fraction.

Encke sighed and settled on the far end of the bed, giving Keeler some space if he wanted it.  “Don’t you fucking cry,” he said.  “I’m no fucking good at this, so don’t you cry.”

Keeler watched him for a bit, looking for something.  Encke rubbed his eyes, exhausted by this, exhausted by Keeler and all his damn problems and fragility and this whole fucking mess showing him he wasn't good at something for the first time in his life.  “Is basic as bad as everyone says it is?” Keeler asked quietly.

Encke shrugged, guessing what Keeler was getting at, asking if he’d been a Fifty or a Six, if he had any fucking clue how bad Keeler had had it.  “Worse for some than others,” he said.  Worse for someone like Fifty, or Keeler, who looked skinny and breakable and scared.  Worse for someone like Fifty or Keeler, who was broken and scared.  “Depends on if you have anyone to watch out for you and who you piss off,” Encke said, looking at the floor and trying not to think about it too much.

“Was it bad for you?”

He’d been closer to Six, despite all his bullshit of pretending to protect Fifty, and if he explained all that then Keeler would never want anything to do with him.  So he just shrugged.  “Not really.  Other guys had it worse.”

“Oh.”

They sat in silence like that for a while, the numbers on the wall clock turning over, Keeler taking shaky breaths of his scotch and barely touching it to his lips.  Encke sat there trying to think past how fucking exhausted he was, trying not to look as bad as Keeler thought he was, hoping Keeler would move to go to his own bunk once he was calmed down.

“You okay?” he asked after a while when Keeler still hadn’t moved.

“No.”

“Oh.”  Encke twisted his hands in his lap, wishing he was as good at this as Morgan was.  She’d have known what to do and what to say, instead of blundering through and making everything worse like he’d done so far.  “Why’d you pick me?”

Keeler looked for something in the bottom of his glass, slipping back to his bored professionalism.  “You were one of the only ones with a good flight record and no disciplinary reports or complaints from your navigators.  Medical said you handled it well when your navigator slit his wrists and your other navigators seemed to like you.  I thought you’d be different.”

“Am I?”

Keeler didn’t look at him.  Shrugged.  Which meant no, he could tell from the way Keeler still shied away from him, avoiding looking at him but watching every breath he took.

“Am I as bad as your other fighters?”

Keeler shrugged again, sick of this bullshit even with Encke trying to apologize.  “My second fighter didn’t want anything to do with me, he’d heard I . . . caught something, and he made sure everyone else knew it too.  After him, Bede had already decided he didn’t like me, didn’t like the way I talked to fighters, decided that everybody should know about . . . about what happened, so made sure they did when we started arguing.”  Keeler curled tighter, trying to make himself smaller.  “I just want to be left alone.”

“I’m sorry.  About being such an asshole.”  Keeler watched him warily behind his glass of scotch, so Encke fumbled the rest of it out.  “I just—I never.  Fuck.  I said some stupid shit, I’m sorry about it.”

“That’s it.”

Encke glared at him, looking for Keeler’s sneering contempt, sure it was there even if Keeler hugged his arms to himself and glanced away.  “Yeah, that’s it,” Encke snapped.  “What else do you want?  I said I was sorry about being a dumb fuck.”

Keeler sighed, and maybe if it had been the first night Encke would have heard it as snide condescension, but now it just sounded exhausted, tired of all of this shit.  “What should I say, I forgive your sins if you shave your head and say ten Hail Marys?  That we can just start over now?  That’s not how it works.”

“I’d do it.  If that’s what you wanted.”

Keeler laughed, bright and brittle and on the edge of tears.  “I don’t think you’d look very good bald.  Maybe a mohawk.”  Encke scrubbed a hand over his hair, going a little long anyway.  

He tried to give Keeler half a smile without being an asshole about it, not sure what he’d do if Keeler up and left for his office again.  Ask for a transfer, probably, tell command he was resigning because he was too much of a dumb shit to do the job and not piss off Keeler every time he opened his mouth.  Leave Keeler to do this all over again with some other asshole fighter, wondering when he was going to get yanked out of bed.  “Meant leaving you alone and starting over, but yeah, I’d get it buzzed too if you said so,” Encke said.

Keeler looked him up and down, knocked back the rest of his scotch, and put his head down on his knees.  “I don’t care.  I’m tired of this, of all of it.  This isn’t what I signed up for.  Do what you want.”

Encke put his head in his hands, wishing there was someone to beat the shit out of for this, anybody to take it out on and have this shit over and done with.  “Gimme the blanket, then, I’m gonna go sleep in the office,” Encke said finally.  "You take the room, we’ll figure this shit out in the morning.”  He stood up, writing out his resignation letter in his head.  He’d send it to Puck first, so Keeler wouldn’t have to deal with him again.

He stopped with cold fingers on his wrist, Keeler catching him before he could get very far.  “You can stay,” Keeler said quietly, an order but not a dismissal this time.  “We can figure something out, it just won’t be starting over.”

“You okay?” Encke asked as Keeler stood up, eyeing each other doubtfully.  Keeler swayed a little, steadying himself with light fingers on the edge of his bunk.

“No,” Keeler said, and Encke wished he hadn’t asked.  “But I’ve been worse, this is nothing.”  Encke didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything, letting Keeler put a hand on his shoulder to steady himself as he climbed the rungs to his own bunk.  He lay awake for a while, listening for Keeler to cry or change his mind and decide to leave again, he wasn’t sure what, but he listened for something until he was sure Keeler was dead asleep, exhausted.  He sat up later than he should have, restless and wishing things were as easy to fix as they had been in basic.


	22. Encke

He was going to do it, he was really fucking going to do it.  Four days to wait for an appointment was too long, gave him too much time to think about it and regret it, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it and he wouldn’t let himself back out on it.  Probably have to break a couple of idiots’ teeth over it if it got around why he’d done it, the leash getting shorter every day, but it was now or never, he’d said he’d do it.  

Encke bounced his knee while he waited, the ship’s barber not moving appointments for neither God nor officer, so Encke just had to sit and listen to him bitch about his bad knee with everybody else.  If he ever wanted a shave and a haircut again for the rest of his enlistment, he’d have to wait in line like everybody else and hope Cureus wouldn’t spread it around too far why the lieutenant was getting a skunk stripe.

His turn in the chair came too fast even after all that.   “Shave the sides, leave the middle.”

Cureus gave him a look in the mirror, peering over his bushy mustache and through his even bushier eyebrows.  Word was he kept the soup strainer to hide a wicked knife scar across his mouth he’d gotten during his first tour of duty, twenty or forty or a hundred years ago.  “Are you fucking serious?” he asked.

“ _Yes_ , I’m _fucking serious_ , just do it.”

He watched Cureus shrug and sharpen the straight razor.  “Whatever you say, son.  Flowers do it for most boys, though, might want to try that next time instead.  Must have been a hell of a fuck up to deserve such a sweet apology.”

Encke bounced his knee.  “Would you just shut the fuck up and do your job?” he snapped.  Nerves, fucking nerves, he could never watch his mouth when he had the fucking nerves.

“Free advice, son, generally it pays to be polite to the man standing behind you with a razor blade.”  Encke glared at him in the mirror and tried not to hiss when the razor grazed a little close to his ear.  Cureus gave him another look in the mirror, so Encke shut his damn mouth before he said anything else stupid.

* * *

Cassius didn’t say anything to the haircut, just gave him a glance and handed him the day’s schedule, ignoring the way Encke ran his hand over the stubble as they walked, uncomfortable with it.  Marked out practically with Keeler’s name written on his ass if word got out why he’d done it, but if he had any luck then only Keeler would ever know.

Keeler eyed him when they suited up for patrol that afternoon, Encke running late as usual after busting heads in training, Keeler mostly dressed and struggling with the back zipper of his flight suit when Encke hurried in to the officers’ locker room for their squad.  “You’re late,” Keeler said, as if it wasn’t obvious from the squad noisily starting to empty out of the crew locker room.

Encke tripped in the doorway, definitely not staring at Keeler’s ass or the way his pale braid glowed against the black flight suit.  Out of his white fatigues Keeler was skinnier, small enough it looked like Encke could have circled his waist in both hands, but harder, less fragile, less soft.  Half dressed like he was and all Encke wanted to do was slip his hands over Keeler’s skin, too fascinated with the difference between his hard flight suit and the soft skin under it.

He looked away, making himself busy with getting into his own flight suit.  “This doesn’t fix anything,” Keeler said, looking pointedly at Encke’s shorn scalp.  He leaned his exposed back against the wall as Encke stripped out of his fatigues, tossing his jacket and undershirt in a pile, trying to doubletime it into his flight suit while ignoring the way Keeler watched him warily.

He sat to pull his zipper up, arching his back to reach it.  “I know,” Encke shrugged when he finally got it on the second try.  “But you said to do it.”

“I never—“ Keeler stopped, frowning.  He shook his head and turned his back, lifting his braid out of the way.  “Zip me up,” he said instead, and Encke tried not to stand too close or take too long as he helped Keeler pull on his professional facade, hiding the pale curve of his back and all his problems behind the convenient lie of the black flight suit.  Keeler turned and glanced up at him as they left together, with something that could have been a smile.  Encke thought he managed to not look too pleased with himself.

* * *

If he was going to make it work, he knew it was going to take more than a mea culpa haircut.  Encke stopped in front of Puck’s workstation the next day, ignoring the way the little shit tongued his lip ring, lewd and vulgar.  He’d never have let any of his men show up to duty with it, but then fighters were smart enough to avoid putting shit on their faces that would just get ripped off in a fight.  Navigators didn’t have to worry about that shit, and Encke didn’t wonder about where else Puck had piercings.  “You.  My office.  Now.”

Puck gave him the wide-eyed innocent look, flipping pink bangs out of his eyes, glancing from Encke to Cassius.  He pursed his lips.  “Lieutenant Keeler is _very_ busy, sir, I can’t just—“

Encke put his hands on Puck’s desk and leaned down.  “Puck, anybody ever tell you I’m a lieutenant too?  And that _once in a while_ , lieutenants are allowed to give secretaries orders?”

“Sir, lieutenants might be able to give _secretaries_ orders, but I’m Lieutenant Keeler’s _administrative assistant_ , so—“ 

“Get your ass in my office and shut up,” Encke snapped, just shy of slamming his hand on the little shit’s desk.  They both glanced at Keeler’s door, waiting for the real orders, but Keeler didn’t make a protest, so Puck was stuck.  Encke turned and walked away, not waiting to see if Puck followed but grateful Cassius did.

Puck stood uneasily in the tiny office, glancing from Cassius to Encke and back, ready to bolt and not bothering to hide it.  Encke waved for Cassius to leave the door open, to prove they weren’t planning to skin him and eat him.  There wasn’t quite enough room, Puck giving them both an empty, pleasant look, chipper and blank and nervous, keeping half an eye on Cassius looming behind him.

Encke crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair.  Cassius knew enough of this bullshit already, knew every damn thing on the ship it seemed like, and he could only hope Puck would be as discreet.  Probably not a good chance of that, but the little shit fawned over Keeler, so that might encourage him to keep it quiet.  

So Encke sighed and pushed on with it.  “I want you to tell Keeler I’m an asshole, but I’m trying to not be such a dumbshit all the time,” he said.  Puck choked, his vapid smile breaking as he looked back at Cassius to see if this was real.  “But I have never in my life not been good at my fucking job, so you’re going to sit down and tell me everything I’ve ever done to piss off Keeler and how not to do it again.”

Puck glanced between them, tonguing his lip ring again, and Encke finally realized it was a nervous thing, not a come-on.  And then felt like an asshole.  Wished he didn’t have to deal with navigators, since fighters were simpler, didn’t get nerves, didn’t have all these bullshit coverups for what they were thinking, these little nervous facades to pretend they weren’t scared or worried.  And then felt like an asshole again, because he knew that wasn’t true, he just knew how to read fighters better.

He let Puck think, the little pixie shifting his weight from foot to foot, making up his mind about something.  “Permission to speak freely?” he asked finally, and Encke wished for once he could say no, since he’d probably never get another chance to tell Puck to keep his opinions to himself.

But then he’d never figure Keeler out, or how to make the whole shitty situation worked.  So he waved Puck at a chair, bracing himself.  “You’re not gonna be much use if you don’t.”

Puck dropped into the one other chair, looking far more chipper than could be good news for anyone, and started counting off on his fingers.  “Well, first of all, that haircut isn’t doing anyone any favors.  Second, Keeler doesn’t like it when you smoke with the fighters, everybody can smell it and you’re not as good at hiding it as you think you are.  Third, when you have to get his attention, don’t grab him, he doesn’t like that.  Don’t touch him at all if you don’t have to.  And don’t ever, ever move anything around on his desk, you might think you’re doing him a favor organizing it, but he knows exactly why every single dirty coffee cup is there and he _will_ make you put them all back.  Actually just don’t touch anything on his desk at all.  Fourth, stop kicking your boots off and just leaving them, put them under your bunk, it’s a small room.  Fifth, don’t ask him where he’s been, if it’s your business he’ll tell you—“

An hour later, Encke rubbed his eyes, head aching from Puck’s increasingly chipper recitation of Keeler’s instruction manual.  Somewhere along the line he’d lost track of the numbered list, just letting Puck’s list of _don’t_ s wash over him.  “Is there anything I _can_ do around him?” Encke asked when Puck paused for breath, looking up at the ceiling and tapping his fingers against his lip piercing, thinking.

“He likes doing crossword puzzles, but he’s _terrible_ at the literature clues,” Puck said, giving Cassius a sly glance.  Cassius shrugged, and Encke made a note to himself to let Cassius deal with Puck and his chattiness from now on, if Cassius enjoyed gossiping with him so much.

“Is that all?” Encke asked.

“Hmmm . . . hair, coffee, smoking, laundry, schedules, music, yelling, crosswords, liquor, boots, showers . . . no, I think that’s about it,” Puck said thoughtfully.  “But I can always tell you if you do something else wrong.”  Of course.

“Good.  Thank you,” Encke said, relieved to be done with this dressing down.  Puck started to get up, Cassius shepherding him out the door.  “Cassius, show—“

Puck stopped in the door, almost barreling Cassius over as he tried not to run into Puck. “Oh!” Puck said too brightly.  “And also he loves it when you initial your reports right away and turn in your requisition orders before deadline—“  Encke tried not to look too grateful when Cassius shoved Puck out the door.

Silence, finally.  “Permission to add something?” Cassius asked in the quiet.  Encke glanced at him, shuffling back through his actual work but curious what Cassius might have picked up through gossip.  “I also heard Lieutenant Keeler hates it when you give everybody extra laps.  Sir.”

Encke glared up at him, but couldn’t keep hold of it when Cassius just shrugged.  So he scowled to keep from smiling and waved Cassius out; he’d have probably tried it too if their positions were reversed.  “Smart ass,” he said to Cassius’ back.


	23. Encke

They got the orders the week after that; moving out for Colteron territory, everyone on edge with the risk of it.  They’d either turn the war or never come back, and Encke put his mind to getting his fighters up to snuff before he had to deal with the new squads shipping in and all the problems they’d bring.  No use borrowing trouble, but short of putting them all on a leash, running them all ragged was the best he could do until the new squads came in.  A week at best, to prepare for the first real challenge of his new command.  

At least Keeler knew what he was doing, even if Encke didn’t yet.

Keeler was curled into the corner of the top bunk when Encke made it back with his dinner, gone cold for how long the mess had let it sit out, but better than nothing.  He set it down on the dresser and stripped down to fatigue pants and an undershirt, Keeler peering down at him from the top bunk, watching him warily, stripped down to boxers and an undershirt himself, all long bony legs and big pale eyes.  He sat curled up with a glass of scotch and his computer in the half dark looking miserable.

“You okay?” Encke asked, eyeing the glass.  He didn’t think he’d done anything lately, but here was Keeler, nursing his watered-down reminder of home.

Keeler hugged an arm to himself and shrugged, glancing away, trying not to give away too much of his anxiety.  “It’s just—getting the new squadrons in, it’ll—“ he sighed.  “It’ll be a lot of adjustments for everyone, while we get into position.”  He frowned down at his scotch, and Encke frowned with him, thinking he got what Keeler meant.  New squads, new fighters trying to prove their position, new people for Bede to circulate the photos of Keeler to.  All of Encke’s stress plus going through what Encke, and Bede, and the Encke before him, and the Encke before him had all done, all of it getting dragged out all over again, and nothing James could do about it.

“What you watching, baby?” he asked, changing the subject.  He could at least try to take Keeler’s mind off it while they figured out what to do about it.

Keeler blushed a little, glancing at the screen.  “Um.  Twelfth Night.”  Encke raised an eyebrow and Keeler pulled his knees up, putting more distance between them.  “Cassius told Puck you were reading it, and I was just—I was just curious,” Keeler finished quietly.  “Puck said he played Feste in high school.”

“Of course he did,” Encke said, wishing he could give that little shit extra laps, but that would probably just make Puck even more chipper, the little bastard.  He leaned on Keeler’s bunk, peering to see which production it was.  “That’s a good version of it,” he said.  “You mind turning the volume up so I can hear while I get my mending done?  I got nothing else to listen to tonight and fuck knows when we’ll have time for it again.”

“Do you want to watch it with me?” Keeler asked quietly, just as Encke was turning away to get his sewing kit and his dinner.  He half turned, not sure he’d heard right.

“You—uh,” he started, hit poleaxed dumb again.  “That’s real nice, but it’s alright—“

“If you don’t want to,” Keeler said, and Encke kicked himself.

“I do.  I—uh,” Encke hurried, Keeler giving him a look somewhere between confusion and a laugh.  “Yeah.  You, um, you want to sit down here?” he asked, gesturing stupidly at the bottom bunk.  Nowhere else for the both of them to sit besides the floor, but with everything—

Keeler hopped down from the top bunk before Encke was even done sputtering, managing to be graceful with a glass of scotch in his hand and a three foot drop where he stepped off the rungs.  He grabbed his computer down from the top bunk and settled it on the dresser as Encke got out his sewing kit and grabbed his dinner.  Their arms brushed as Keeler went back to sit on the bunk, not as pressed to the far end as he could have been, and Encke somehow managed to not trip over himself with the distraction of Keeler’s warm proximity.

The second act opened as Encke wolfed his dinner, half starved and half trying to not spatter it all over Keeler.  “ _Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?_ ” Antonio asked on the screen, Keeler sipping his scotch.

“ _By your patience, no_ ,” Sebastien answered.  “ _My stars shine darkly over_

_me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps_

_distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your_

_leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad_

_recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you_.”

Encke risked a glance at Keeler, who looked near to bored or asleep, knees pulled up to his chest and doing his best to ignore Encke even though he’d done the offering, and Encke wondered if this wasn’t a bad idea.  Things between them would have been easier if they could just ignore each other and each other’s problems, because fuck knew Encke had enough to deal with as it was.  

He set aside his dinner just as Antonio finished the scene, following Sebastien out, and Encke only then realized just how deep in the shit he’d gotten himself.  

“ _I have many enemies in Orsino's court,_

_Else would I very shortly see thee there._

_But, come what may, I do adore thee so,_

_That danger shall seem sport, and I will go_.”

He made himself busy with his mending, whipping together the torn seams and unpatched elbows commissary wouldn’t have time to get to soon if ever.  Easier to concentrate on busy work, easier to concentrate on simple things that didn’t ask anything of him, than it was to think about what exactly he’d gotten himself into.  Keeler watched him sideways and pretended not to, his eyes but not his interest on the screen.

“Could you—“ Keeler started about a half hour later, a tense half hour of Malvolio and Toby Belch’s bumbling failings, and Encke snapped his thread in surprise.  “Could you put a button on for me?” Keeler asked.

“Sure thing, baby, you want to grab it?  ‘M almost done with this,” Encke said, squinting in the half light to tie the knot where he’d snapped the thread.  

Keeler unfolded himself slowly, padding across the little space in the half light, silhouetted by the screen, and Encke only realized then that he hadn’t shut his drawer all the way when he’d pulled his sewing kit out.

“Oh,” Keeler said, lifting a stuffed bear out of Encke’s open drawer.  Battered, it needed a mending, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, needing Morgan to do it even though he was a grown-ass man now and not the whimpering twelve-year-old Morgan had picked up from the police station.  “ . . . What’s the J for?” Keeler asked, cutting through the loud noise of his heartbeat in his ears, tracing the faded J dragged across its belly in marker.

Encke thought about that for a while, Keeler holding his whole childhood and his whole life in his hands, the one thing nobody had seen since he moved out of Morgan’s and joined the service.  “What’s his name?” Keeler asked eventually, probably guessing the reason for Encke’s silence.  Too personal to share that, even after everything he knew about Keeler, because Encke as an asshole, and Keeler wasn’t.

“Noodles,” he said, trying to make up for it.

Keeler gave him a look like he hadn’t heard right.  “What?”

“Um.” Encke cleared his throat, trying to cover his nerves.  “Noodles.”

Keeler pressed his lips together, trying not to smile, and Encke tried not to be grateful for it.  “That’s um, that’s a good name,” Keeler said.  “It’s sweet,” he added quietly.

“I’m James,” Encke blurted.  It was the only thing he had anything like what Keeler had told him; it was nothing, but it was the only part of himself Keeler couldn’t just look up from his computer, the one thing Keeler couldn’t just ask an assistant to dig up about him.  “What’s your name, baby?” he asked, before he thought better of it.

Keeler’s shoulders stiffened, turning away.  He tucked Noodles back in the drawer and closed it carefully.  “Don’t call me that.  It’s demeaning.”

Encke opened his mouth and thought better of it.  Thought for a second about what he’d do if anybody besides Morgan ever called him _baby_ , especially someone twice his size, but he’d never gotten fucked by anybody, always been the bigger one, the stronger one, the _pushy_ one, and would have punched somebody’s teeth out even at fifteen when he started messing around with skinny boys after school.  Hadn’t been short enough since he was thirteen for anyone but Morgan to even think it.  

So he shut his mouth and didn’t say anything, because Keeler was right.  “Sorry,” he said finally, waiting for Keeler close his computer and draw up the walls between them again, maybe for good this time, but then Keeler was crossing the little space again, handing Encke a white jacket.

“Hector,” Keeler said, pretending not to watch Encke sideways as he sat again, so Encke pretended not to notice, clipping the dangling button away and threading the needle again.

“’S a pretty name,” he tried after a while.  “The one that fought Achilles.”

“The one that got killed,” Keeler said flatly.  Encke kept his hands busy with the sewing, wondered if Keeler knew Hector had been a sacrificial lamb.  “I never read it all, but my mother got me a copy of the Iliad when I was twelve.  I, um, decided I didn’t like reading after I got to all the ships.  I sort of quit and just did a search for my name.”

“He’s the hero, though,” Encke said, trying to salvage something.  “He changed everything, even Achilles.”

Keeler just shrugged.  “Dead heros are still dead.”  

Encke frowned, didn’t have an answer for that, so he just folded Keeler’s jacket away, its button back practically like new.  Only Keeler would ever know the thread was a little different color and not quite regulation neat, but it was the best he could do.  “You okay?” Encke asked, Keeler sitting there silent watching him.

Keeler licked his lips, glancing from Encke’s mouth to his eyes, thinking about something.  Then leaned in and brushed a cool, paper dry kiss on Encke’s cheek and scooted closer, shrugging under Encke’s arm until they both sat there frozen, backs to the wall with Encke’s arm across Keeler’s shoulder.  “Is this okay?” Keeler asked finally.

“Um.”  Keeler was more solid than he’d imagined, and not so brittle, taut muscle even if Encke could have put his hands around Keeler’s waist.  He swallowed hard and felt his palms go sweaty.  This was nothing.  If Keeler could manage to get over being scared of him, if they could both face down this tour together, he could manage to not fuck this up too badly.  He hoped.  “Yeah, this is—uh, this is good,” Encke said finally, not sure what Keeler expected from him with this.

But Keeler just relaxed against him as Act Two rolled on, and Encke sat there stiff, hoping he wouldn’t find some new thing to add to Puck’s list of _don’t_ s.  Keeler smelled different this close, like clean laundry and coffee, and Encke wished he’d gotten the time after busting heads in training to take a shower himself, sure he stank from running laps with Cassius.

“ _She never told her love,_

_But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,_

_Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,_

_And with a green and yellow melancholy_

_She sat like patience on a monument,_

_Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?_

_We men may say more, swear more: but indeed_

_Our shows are more than will; for still we prove_

_Much in our vows, but little in our love_.”

He didn’t really realize Keeler had fallen asleep against him until Act Three had started, the tense lines of his pale forehead finally relaxed as his cheek pressed against Encke’s shoulder, the deep circles under his eyes sunken darker in the blue light off the computer screen.

Encke rolled the shoulder without Keeler leaning against him, chilled on one side leaning against the metal wall and warm on the other side where Keeler’s warm body curled against him.  He watched Keeler’s pale eyelashes flutter on his cheek, Viola and Olivia bickering on the little screen.

_“I prithee, tell me what thou thinkest of me.”_

_“That you do think you are not what you are.”_

_“If I think so, I think the same of you.”_

_“Then think you right: I am not what I am.”_

_“I would you were as I would have you be!”_

_“Would it be better, madam, than I am? I wish it might, for now I am your fool.”_

Keeler sighed and Encke froze, not sure what he could be doing wrong to ruin this, but sure he was doing something.  He held his breath as Keeler stretched against him, waking up a little.  Keeler looked up at him then, and Encke tightened his arm around Keeler’s narrow shoulders without thinking about it.

“It’s late,” Keeler said finally, glancing at the clock.  And then it was Encke’s turn to go tense as Keeler traced the line of his collarbone through his shirt, Keeler’s fingertips cool through the fabric.  “I should—we should get to bed,” Keeler said, and Encke was just nodding his agreement and pulling his arm away when Keeler leaned in to kiss again, slow this time.

It was chaste and awkward, Encke too shocked to take the lead, letting himself be pushed back gently as Keeler straddled him.  He had a half second of hot embarrassment over how fast he’d gotten hard, but then Keeler was rocking into him, their teeth clashing awkwardly and he could feel how hard Keeler was too.  Encke smoothed a hand over Keeler’s back as Keeler cupped his face, gentle and clumsy at the same time.

“It’s late,” Keeler breathed finally, pulling back.  Encke nodded dumbly, hands on Keeler’s waist and fighting the urge to put a hand in Keeler’s hair and pull him back.  Keeler leaned in for a short kiss, though, brief and warm as he started to get up.

Encke watched him close the computer, left sitting there on his bunk hard and alone and frustrated in the full dark now, Keeler padding silent past him to hesitate at the rungs for the top bunk.  Keeler reached out a hand to brush his shoulder and Encke caught it, kissing Keeler’s cool palm, but let him go.  It was late, and they both had plenty else to worry about in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noodles is stolen from [Seberu](http://seberu.tumblr.com/) and [JustEight](http://justeight.tumblr.com/post/41611426826/all-the-feels-that-spawned-this-and-some-that-came); there's a picture of him [HERE](http://justeight.tumblr.com/post/41613109305/i-threw-on-a-blue-filter-and-liked-it-a-little-bit). For this storyline, only the teddy is part of this, though.
> 
> And the lovely and talented [Melonopoppolus](http://mel-onopoppolus.tumblr.com/) made me cry and did an art of this. 


	24. Encke

He watched Keeler dress in the morning, bleary tired even though Keeler looked about as chipper as Puck, giving him shy smiles and a quick, chaste kiss as he re-braided his hair.  Encke had lain awake half the night kicking himself for getting this involved, even if it had seemed like a good idea at the time, because it certainly didn’t seem like a good idea with his cock hard and no privacy to even sneak into the head and jerk off, and now Keeler comfortable enough to flirt but not make a move.

“I have meetings all day, but if you want, we could have lunch at the office—“ Keeler said, coming to lean on the wall next to the bunks as he buttoned his jacket, Encke watching him blurrily.

“What about now?” Encke asked, putting his hand behind Keeler’s knee, tracing circles through his uniform.  “You got time before breakfast?”

Keeler gave him a smile, flushed to the collar of his jacket.  “I can make time,” he said, easing down to straddle Encke’s lap and cup his face again.  Encke undid the button he’d sewn on the night before, smoothing his hands over Keeler’s warm undershirt.  Keeler tilted Encke’s face up, his fingertips cold under Encke’s jaw, his thumb brushing over Encke’s lips.  

The kissing was better this time, only a little awkward clicking of teeth, and Keeler let his mouth be teased open just a little, his tongue cool just like the rest of him.  Encke shrugged Keeler’s cold hands away, pushing his jacket open so he could get at Keeler’s warm throat better, nose pressed below Keeler’s ear and mouthing his faint pulse.

Keeler rocked against him, tentative, balancing himself with one hand on Encke’s shoulder and one hand brushing the back of his head, tickling at the stubble.  So Encke took a risk and put a hand on Keeler’s thigh, moving slow, rocking Keeler into him as he kissed Keeler’s warm ear.  Keeler didn’t make a sound but eased into it, bending his head and pushing cold fingers under the collar of Encke’s shirt, so Encke risked a little more and finally grabbed Keeler’s ass, the first time after all that time, and Keeler pulled Encke’s face back up to kiss.

So he pushed Keeler a little more, feeling him get hard, and Encke fumbled with the button of Keeler’s pants.

Took his hands away quick as if he’d been scalded when Keeler drew back.  “I don’t think—we shouldn’t—“

Encke stroked Keeler’s arm, frustrated and hard himself but trying to be gentle.  “Baby, it’s okay, I didn’t mean to push you—“

Keeler took a deep, shuddery breath, shaking his head.  “It’s not that—I’ve never been tested for—anything.  Medical won’t test except in cases of—unless there’s been a report filed, and I . . . never filed one.”  Never had been allowed to, never got the chance to.  Keeler’s jaw tightened and he glanced away, ashamed of something that wasn’t his fault, and if Encke had thought it would fix anything, he’d have marched into the commander’s office then and punched the asshole in the face.

But it wouldn’t have fixed anything, so instead he licked his lips, thinking, leaning back with one hand on the mattress and one hand on Keeler’s waist.  Trying to keep Keeler from bolting, if he was being honest.  “Well, you’d know if you had something, not like it hurts when you p—“

“Hepatitis, herpes, syphilis,” Keeler listed, taking a breath to steady himself.  Of course he knew these by heart, had probably had plenty of time to think about it.  “ _HIV_.”  Encke took a deep breath too.  All the serious ones, the ones hard or impossible to get rid of.  “No symptoms, no rape, no test,” Keeler finished with a little shrug, and started trying to get up, buttoning his jacket and closing himself off.  “I’m sorry, I should have said something sooner.  It was selfish of me.”

“Keeler,” Encke said, catching Keeler by the waist again, catching himself before he said _baby_.  “You got nothing to be sorry about.  I don’t care, we’ll figure something out.”

Keeler gave him a sideways look, leaning away but appraising, thinking about it.  “Like what?”

“Don’t know, there has to be condoms somewhere on this ship, and if we get out of this tour, we’ll get tested together somewhere on shore leave.  What we were doing was good,” he said, reaching up to trace the line of Keeler’s jaw under his hair.  If he was being honest, it was more likely he had something than Keeler did, because fuck only knew what he could have picked up from Fifty.

Keeler smiled then and leaned down for a slow kiss, not so awkward this time with Encke taking the lead just a little, stroking Keeler’s jaw with his thumb.  “I’ll see you for lunch?” Keeler asked, breaking away.  Encke let him go, changing fast as Keeler left, throwing Encke a quick shy smile over his shoulder as he shut the door.

* * *

He was fairly sure he wasn’t supposed to ask his sergeant to go looking for contraband condoms, but he rationalized that it was a public health issue, a matter of keeping the officers healthy during a time of war.  And if it meant finally getting laid, by fuck he’d find any goddamn condoms on the ship if it was the last thing he did, even if it meant having Cassius turn over every shipping crate of supplies for contraband and buying off every stoner on the ship with booze and a promise to look the other way on recreational use.

Keeler met him in the door of his office at precisely noon, holding his own lunch tray and Cassius standing behind him with one for Encke.  He gave Cassius a glare and told him to go update the crew roster with the incoming squads, something to keep him busy since he apparently had enough time on his hands to help arrange lunch dates.  Cassius shrugged and went back to his workstation outside Encke’s door, but Encke caught Puck’s eager glance as he closed the door.

The two of them alone in Encke’s office was different than being alone in their room, or in Keeler’s office with the door open.  It was smaller for one thing, their knees brushing under the desk, and Encke realized for all the times he’d been in Keeler’s office, disaster area though it was, Keeler had never been to his.  Because there wasn’t really anything in Encke’s office, no special servers, no displays, nothing besides a place for Encke to sit down for fifteen minutes and initial things for Puck while he thought up semi-illicit errands for Cassius to do.  Keeler had no reason to ever need to be in Encke’s office, except now to see Encke, and that made even the bland soy protein mess sent up seem palatable.

It was closed-door lunches in Encke’s office every day after that, and if Cassius knew as much as Puck did with his raised eyebrows and not-so-surreptitious thumbs-up to Keeler when he though Encke wasn’t looking, at least Cassius didn’t let on.  Not that he really cared, not when he had Keeler sitting across the desk, rambling on about the engine project and rubbing the tip of his shoe against Encke’s instep, chaste and teasing without thinking about it.  And especially not when Keeler sat on his lap after, laughing at the awkwardness of trying to do a crossword puzzle together on Keeler’s tablet without falling out of the chair.  Encke just put his hands on Keeler’s thighs and his chin on Keeler’s shoulder, taking whatever quick intimacy they could get on a stolen half hour lunch in the office.

* * *

Cassius took three days to find condoms, taking his sweet goddamn time to find the biggest, most embarrassing box possible.  

**_MAGNUM 48CT VALUE PACK!_  **

Encke grabbed them out of Cassius' hand as soon as he realized what the box was, throwing it in his desk drawer and slamming it shut, craning around to make sure Puck hadn’t seen anything through the open office door.  But then, Puck had probably found the damn things and handed them off to Cassius.

“Don’t you have reports to finish?” Encke snapped, face flushed hot.

Cassius shrugged and started to leave, discreet as always, and Encke cursed under his breath.

“Cassius,” he said, just as Cassius stopped in the door and stood there waiting for orders.  Encke ground his jaw.  “You didn’t have to do this.  I owe you.”

“I know,” Cassis said, with another shrug and a smile this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the behind-the-scenes of Cassius and Puck's antics in this chapter, see [Cassius' Scavenger Hunt](http://archiveofourown.org/works/689345) by [chollarcho](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chollarcho/pseuds/chollarcho).


	25. Encke

Couldn’t smuggle the damn big box back to the room in his flight suit, good for leaving nothing to the imagination and bad for anything remotely useful.  And Keeler demanded to know why he was trying to slip out of the room with a jacket and a sweatshirt on, so they snuck back to Encke’s office together like teenagers after dinner, Keeler giggling like mad when he saw the box and giggling even harder when Encke stuffed it under his jacket and sweatshirt to hide the outline of it.  

Encke made him quit his laughing once they were in the elevator, pulling Keeler against him to kiss and ignoring the sharp corners of the cardboard box being crushed into his ribs.

Keeler got shy once they were in the room again, but not nearly as shy as Encke, not sure how fast or what to push for.  And Keeler had seen him naked once, that second night of being paired together, but never since, not even since their little lunch dates in the office.

So he stood there dumb and let Keeler take the lead, goosebumps pricking on his arms once he was out of his condom-smuggling layers, with Keeler’s cold hands sliding up under his shirt.  Keeler smiled up at him, shy and bold at the same time, and Encke helped him out of his jacket again, pressing his nose to Keeler’s hair.  

He was shakier than when he lost his virginity on scrawny Adrien’s couch when he was sixteen, because if this time there was no risk of Keeler’s mother walking in and catching them, he wanted Keeler worse than he’d wanted any of the other skinny boys he’d fucked, and couldn’t figure out how to do it without breaking him.  Keeler kissed the side of his throat, leaning on Encke as he kicked out of his boots.  Encke held him by the waist and finally let Keeler help him out of his shirt, both of them so fucking awkward with not knowing how to do this.  

They fell into bed half dressed, Keeler almost kneeing him in the balls and laughing nervously before Encke pulled him down to kiss.  They both relaxed into just kissing, not so much pressure with the familiar awkwardness of it instead of the new awkwardness sitting in a box on the floor.  Keeler hesitated for half a beat when Encke’s hands strayed to his ass, but sat back and started to unbutton his fly, glancing at Encke through his lashes.

“Would you go down on me first?” Keeler asked, hesitating.

Encke felt his face go hot, could see Keeler flush just as hot in the dim light from the upper bunk, and Encke pushed himself up far enough to catch Keeler’s lip and kiss him hard, even if it hurt his back to strain at the bad angle.  “Whatever you want, baby, anything.”  If it was going to be Keeler’s first time, his real first time, Encke could forget about how much he hated sucking cock for one night and make it good.

Keeler smirked and leaned down to put his mouth next to Encke’s ear.  “How about not calling me _baby_ ,” he murmured, and Encke shivered looking up at him, wondering how much of his soul he’d have to sell to get Keeler to say it again.  Shuddered again when Keeler rubbed his cock through his uniform, quick and barely there if he didn’t need this so fucking bad, and then Keeler was stripping out of his shirt and pants, Encke trying to get out of his without kicking Keeler in the face and mostly succeeding.

Then there they were, lying chest to chest with Keeler on him, all skinny legs and skinny ribs, every single one of his vertebrae standing out under Encke’s hands, practically a xylophone.  Encke stroked his back, fingering the band of Keeler’s boxers.  

Keeler didn’t make a sound when Encke pushed them off him finally, his ass warm and the muscles of his thighs hard as Encke stroked the back of his knee.  Keeler didn’t make a sound when Encke rearranged them, nudging Keeler to sit against the head of the bunk so Encke could kiss a trail down Keeler’s skinny bare chest, stroking his cock harder.  He kissed the inside of Keeler’s knees, grazing his teeth over the soft skin inside his thighs, Keeler silent except for his breath coming faster.

Encke somehow managed not to fall out of bed hunting for the box of condoms, getting one open after too long, and Keeler just watched him with big eyes as he rolled it on carefully.

It tasted awful, worse than he remembered come tasting, and that was something.  Some horrible medical taste, plastic and fake cinnamon mixed with menthol, like an advertisement for abstinence.  It made his tongue feel awful, tingling and hot all at once, so he spat on his hand, kissing Keeler’s warm thigh while he stroked his cock, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.  Keeler didn’t seem to mind, eyes closed tight and breath short, and this way Encke could watch him get close.

So he was watching when Keeler opened his eyes again, and Encke could have come just from the look on his face alone, so fucking beautiful in the half light.  “Could you . . . do it harder?  Just a little?”  Keeler bit his lip, anxious and beautiful, like there was anything Encke could say no to then.

He tightened his hand, licking his lips so he could suck Keeler deeper, raking his teeth over the smooth tip of Keeler’s cock, doing it again when he caught Keeler’s sharp hiss, the only sound he’d made almost all night.  He grabbed Keeler’s ass, holding him steady as he clumsily flicked his tongue, trying to remember every good blowjob he’d ever gotten and give it to Keeler, and failing miserably at it.  

Or he thought, until Keeler came with a little whimper, curling over Encke with his hand curling against Encke’s scalp.  Encke kissed his thigh and belly, pulling the condom off carefully and tossing it in the trash next to the bed.  Keeler pulled him up to kiss, his hands straying down tentatively, and Encke shoved out of his own underwear finally, sure it wouldn’t take any time for how fucking long it’d been.

They rearranged themselves so Encke could lean against the wall with Keeler straddling his lower legs, not the most comfortable thing ever, but no room for anything else unless he kicked Keeler out of bed to kneel on the cold floor.  Keeler watched him open another condom and roll it on, both of them breathing slow.  Encke hissed with Keeler’s cold hands tracing over his belly and thighs, but Keeler made up for it with warm kisses across his shoulders and down his chest, down and back up, trying to work up to it, changing his mind, and Encke had almost made up his mind to just stroke himself off when Keeler finally went for it.

It wasn’t as good with the condom, or it wasn’t as good with Keeler, no warmth and barely any pressure.  And Encke felt like an asshole almost as soon as he thought it, but it was hard to concentrate on anything besides how slow Keeler was.  He felt one of Keeler’s hands curl against his thigh and fumbled for Keeler’s other hand, lacing their fingers together, trying to think about something besides how long this was going to take.

He stroked Keeler’s gorgeous pale hair, brushing it away from where it tickled his thigh and where it hid Keeler’s face, needing to see him.  “Don’t,” Keeler said suddenly, sitting up and leaning away, shoving Encke’s hands off him.  “Don’t touch my hair,” he said, and Encke winced, trying not to think of the photo, with someone else’s black glove in Keeler’s hair, wishing he’d never seen it.  

Encke took a deep breath.  “Sorry, b—sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it,” Keeler said with a little smile, and leaned back down to press a chaste kiss to the inside of Encke’s thigh.

Keeler was slow again, and first too soft, then too hard, his back teeth grazing the tip of Encke’s cock when he tried to swallow too far, fumbling and not quite picking up a rhythm.

“C’mere,” Encke said finally, trying to be nice about it, but he’d go soft with much more of Keeler’s hesitance.  He pulled Keeler up to lay against his chest, better once he could put an arm around Keeler’s shoulders and kiss him hard, Keeler not so slow and soft with his hand on Encke’s cock.  Could have been better with both of them not tasting like the goddamn condoms, but with Keeler stroking him and clumsily trying to rock in rhythm with him, it was good enough.  He finally came, the condom making it uncomfortably different.  He pulled it off with a snap, wincing, and didn’t notice Keeler starting to get up with the distraction of trying to land it in the trash.

“You can stay here, baby,” Encke said, trying to catch him by the waist, to pull him back.

“There’s no room,” Keeler said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and sliding out of his grasp.

* * *

Encke tried the next night, after what twice in a row was getting to be routine.  Awkwardly falling into bed, Keeler coming fast and Encke taking forever, frustrated with Keeler’s shy clumsiness but not able to say anything, Keeler getting up right after to go to his own bed.  But Encke thought he’d figured it out, fucking around with the bunks for too long after Keeler left for his shift, running so late Cassius called the room to check up on him.

“Could put the mattresses on the floor, the bunks snap up,” Encke mumbled, stroking Keeler’s thigh.  He figured they snapped away to make it easier for maintenance to hose out if anyone blew their brains out on the walls, but Encke didn’t mention that part.

Keeler shook his head.  He pulled his undershirt on without saying anything, shrugging Encke’s hands away where he tried to slide them up under his shirt.

“Why not, baby?”

“Do you need a reason besides I don’t want to?” Keeler asked softly, and Encke sat up.

“No, I just—it’d be nice, is all.”  _Cuddling_ was too pansy-sweet to say, but that was exactly what he wanted, for Keeler to just stay and be there when he woke up, someone warm and soft and predictable the closer this mission into enemy territory got to reality.

Keeler looked over his shoulder, thinking about something.  Leaned in for a quick kiss and then he was gone, back to his own bunk like every other night.

* * *

He managed to keep his mouth shut about the other thing until the night before the transfer shuttle docked.

He lay curled around Keeler, trying to pretend that if they stayed like that long enough, Keeler wouldn’t get up and moved to his own bunk for once.  And he should have just kept his fucking mouth shut and been thankful for what he had, Keeler’s warm bare ass pressed against him after jerking each other off, but it was hard to think straight with his nose pressed into Keeler’s tangled hair and holding him like that.

He didn’t think there’d be any harm in asking.  “Next time, you wanna actually fuck?” he mumbled against the back of Keeler’s neck.

Keeler sat up suddenly, jostling Encke against the wall.  “I don’t want to do that.  Ever. It hurts.”  Keeler swung his legs off the bed, looking for his clothes in the dark.  “Why can’t we keep doing other things?”

“Baby, it’s not supposed to hurt, not if you do it right and take it slow.  I’ll show you,” Encke said, running his hand over Keeler’s thigh, trying to sound reassuring.

“No,” Keeler pulled away, shaking his head with hair falling in his face, but Encke could see him closing himself off already, putting up the wall and going blank.

Encke caught him by the wrist, fumbling it out before Keeler could yank his hand away.  “Do you—want to fuck me?” he tried, looking for some way to fix this, trying to offer something.  He didn’t really want to, but sucking it up and doing it a couple times had taught Keeler sucking cock wasn’t so bad, so he could manage this too.

“I said no,” Keeler said, his voice level but Encke could feel him freeze, leaning away as much as he could without putting up a fight.  Letting whatever Encke was going to do to him happen, not fighting it for fear of how much worse it would be.  

Encke let him go.

Keeler hurried into his boxers, yanking his shirt off the floor and rushing into the top bunk as fast as he could without it on, hurrying as fast as he could without exactly looking like he was running, which was exactly what he was doing.  Encke lay on his back with an arm over his eyes, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.  Didn’t want to think about Keeler looking like Fifty again in the morning, curled up tight in the corner of the top bunk and wondering when Encke was going to beat the shit out of him.

“I didn’t mean—“ Encke sighed once Keeler was safe in his own bunk.  “I meant, if you wanted, we could do it with you, you know . . .”

“ _What_ ,” Keeler snapped in the dark, hiding behind anger so Encke couldn’t hear how scared he was.

“Meant with you, you know, topping?” Encke tried, uncomfortable with having to talk about it.  He’d never had to talk about it before, always been the one that did the fucking, and he’d never thought he’d have to get fucked.  

But it couldn’t be so bad, if Fifty and all his other navigators had gotten off on it.  Keeler wasn’t that big, so it probably wouldn’t hurt.  And he wouldn’t even have to like it anyway, if it proved to Keeler that Encke wouldn’t hurt him.  They could just do it that way a couple times, switch, and never have to do it again once Keeler realized he liked getting fucked after all.  

“So do you want to fuck me or not?” he snapped at the ceiling, frustrated that he had to spell it all out.

Keeler poked his head over the edge of his bunk finally, frowning down at Encke in the half dark, barely visible except for his pale braid hanging down.  “You mean with _me_ inside _you_ ,” Keeler said slowly, like it was distasteful or he couldn’t quite believe it, which was exactly how Encke felt about it.

“ _Yes_ ,” he snapped.

Keeler stared down at him in silence, too dark to see what he was thinking.  “Have you done it before?” he said after a while.

“No,” Encke mumbled petulantly, wishing Keeler would quit dragging this out, or that he’d never offered in the first place.

When Keeler finally said it, it was so quiet Encke almost didn’t catch it.  “So you want me to take your virginity?”  

He thought about that, propping himself up on his elbows, straining to see Keeler in the dark.  All he’d ever thought about was trying to be gentle for Keeler’s first time, but this was a different kind of first time, for both of them, and he’d never really thought about losing his virginity with someone fucking him.  “Yeah, I guess so,” he said finally.  “If you want to do it.”

Keeler pulled back from the edge of the bunk then, disappearing back into the dark and Encke threw himself back on the mattress, frustrated and pissed with Keeler for making him say all of it only to shoot him down.  He listened as Keeler rustled in his bunk, starting to climb down.  Probably to go sleep in the office again, ask for a transfer, and tell Puck to tell everyone that the big dumbfuck colonial had begged for it up the ass.

So he didn’t move when Keeler came around to stand next to Encke’s bunk, holding his pillow.  “Move over,” Keeler said, putting his knee on the bunk to nudge Encke over.  If it hadn’t been dark, Keeler might have caught him staring gape-mouthed as he scooted over, still naked as Keeler tossed his pillow down and lay down still dressed.  Keeler carefully put his head on Encke’s shoulder, skin cool through his shirt as Encke put a hand on his back.

Encke breathed carefully, waiting for Keeler to decide what he wanted.  Waited so long that he realized Keeler was asleep, curled against him in the narrow little bed.


	26. Encke

Encke saw him on the crew roster before he saw him in person, reviewing personnel records in his office before briefings. 

Cain and Abel.  One—fuck, _Bering_ , fuck him, _Commander_ Bering now—had never been very subtle.

The birthdate caught his eye, and he cursed under his breath.  The stupid little shit had been sixteen in basic, fifteen the first day with his birthday the second day, and if Encke hadn’t already felt like an asshole after everything, he sure as hell felt like an asshole once he realized that.  Happy fucking birthday, Fifty, get bent over a sink by some stranger in the middle of the night and slapped around after.  He’d thought Fifty had been a scrawny early sign up at seventeen, not that that made any of it any better, not with what he’d been pushed into pushing Fifty to do for Six and Eleven and Nine.

He tried and failed rationalizing that he’d only been nineteen himself, but that didn’t make any fucking difference.  If he’d found out about some nineteen year old asshole fucking one of his fifteen-year-old little foster siblings he’d have killed the fucker.  He rubbed his eyes, wishing he’d stopped and thought about any of it then, even though Fifty had probably talked his way past the recruiter with a fake ID or on his knees.  

Not that that was any excuse for fucking a scared fifteen year old kid.

If it hadn’t been him, though, it would have been someone else, and Fifty would have been even worse off with Six or Nine or nobody to watch his back.  James had done the best he could by him, and Fifty’s own fault for throwing it away by sneaking around behind his back.  James had done better by him than anyone else would have, and better than Fifty had deserved anyway by the end of it.

Twenty-two now, filled out some and not quite so fucking skinny, but still not very big from the looks of his roster photo.  Blue hair and a different earring, cute with playing at dangerous, if Encke didn’t know how he’d gotten out of basic.  Commendations left and right, a couple disciplinary reports, shuffled around to different navigators every other month.  Good at killing shit, bad at playing well with others, not much had changed.  And bad fucking luck for his navigator, if Bering’s little joke of a name was anything to go by.

Encke ignored them in the back of the briefing that afternoon, Fifty and his little sidekick Thirty, and Encke was a liar if he said he wasn’t surprised Fifty was still getting fucked by Thirty after all this time.  Figured that Fifty would have found someone bigger and meaner to fuck him, but word was Thirty was just as dangerous with a knife as ever and Fifty always had gotten off on pain.

But Fifty wasn’t his problem any more, and so long as he didn’t make trouble, Encke wouldn’t ever have to deal with him.

* * *

The second briefing could have gone better, Encke rushing in late only to come up short with One—Bering—giving him a bemused look where he leaned back in his chair.  Keeler glared up at him, oblivious to everything except Cook’s glare at them both.  Their assistants gave him sour looks behind the commanders’ chairs, short hair and long hair, and his head was so full of Cassius’ notes on which of the fighters were going to be problem cases that he could barely remember their room number, let alone what Cook and Bering's assistants' names were.

Keeler kicked him under the table as he sat down, shoving a sheet of paper at him. _Be late again and I’ll kick your ass_.

Encke barely choked back a laugh, keeping his face straight as Cook’s assistant glared him down, Bering’s going on about squad configurations.  So Encke gave them both a level look, the picture of serious professionalism as he dug out a pen to tease Keeler. _Is that a fact?_

Their fingers brushed as Keeler yanked the sheet of paper back.  _YES! >:(_

Keeler shoved it back at him, fingers brushing Encke’s thigh under the table and trying to look serious as Cook gave them another glance, pulling up maps.  Encke listened with half an ear as the briefing meandered on, Bering cutting in to talk over Cook, going on oblivious to the pointed glares he was getting for interrupting.  He doodled Bering pontificating, scribbling in the beard.

 He caught Keeler watching him, bored out of his head with the pointless blather too, distracted with the doodling.  _Briefings are boring being lead fighter sucks._

_Stop, we’ll get caught._

So Encke scribbled in the line of Bering's eyebrows darker. _Blah blah blah,_ Encke added around Bering’s fat little head, Keeler choking on a laugh.  He took the sheet away and Encke expected it to disappear, but Keeler carefully sketched out a very unhappy Cook, glaring through his little round glasses.

Encke reached across Keeler, scribbling on the paper and trying to look like he was still paying attention. _You’re fired!_

 _“Scythe._ Is there something amusing you’d like to share with the rest of us?” Cook snapped, glaring at the sheet of paper between them.  Encke swept it under his tablet, Keeler scrabbling to grab it away.

“No sir,” Encke said smoothly, Bering rolling his eyes behind Cook and their assistants exchanging glances behind their backs.

“Can we get on with it, _Commander_?” Bering murmured, and Encke thought he caught Cook flush as he turned away.  

Keeler kicked him under the table again when no one was looking and Encke just squeezed his knee.  He drew circles on the inside of Keeler’s thigh until he made Keeler blush guiltily, pushing his hand away, but not before lacing their fingers together and giving his hand a squeeze.

* * *

He went back to the room that night, late after crew lights out, expecting to get his ass chewed out for dicking around during the briefing, but if Keeler was going to scold him by shoving him against the door as soon as he walked in and tearing his flight suit off him, he’d make sure to goof off more often.

He grabbed Keeler’s skinny ass and picked him up, Keeler’s legs around his waist and cold hands cupping Encke’s face as they stood there in the middle of the room, cold air prickling the hair on the back of his neck where Keeler had started to undo the zipper of his flight suit.

“The fuck got into you today?” Encke laughed, Keeler backing off just enough to let him get a breath.

He hissed as Keeler started shoving his flight suit down off his shoulders, the cold air hitting him as hard as Keeler’s warm body pressed against him.  “I decided I didn’t want to die a virgin, if this all goes like they say it will,” Keeler said into his neck.  “Did you mean what you said last night?”

Encke leaned back, trying to get a good look at Keeler, flushed and hands twisted on the collar of Encke’s flight suit, embarrassed and scared.  “Yeah,” he said finally, brushing his lips against Keeler’s ear.  “Yeah, of course I meant it.”  He eased Keeler down on the bottom bunk, stripping out of his flight suit as Keeler tossed his own jacket away.  Encke climbed after him naked, Keeler biting his lips as he looked up with big eyes.  

He was so fucking gorgeous, skinny and breakable and perfect, watching Encke’s mouth as he undressed Keeler slow, kissing every new inch of skin.  He ran a hand over Keeler’s tight thigh, kissing his hip, stroking his cock, trying to make this as good as possible for Keeler even if he was having trouble getting hard for the thought of it.

Keeler was all lean muscle and skinny legs, gangly and too many bony joints in the bed as they tried to sort out how they were going to do it, and Keeler took a shuddery breath when Encke finally straddled him.  Keeler soldiered on, though, giving Encke a shy smile as he fumbled for a little bottle of lube, and Encke somehow managed not to groan with embarrassment now that he knew for sure Puck was involved.

 _Lipsmacking sweet green apple, love’s forbidden fruit!_   Perfect with the cinnamon condoms, probably.

Another minute of awkward fumbling as they juggled the lube back and forth, and then a condom, and then the lube again as Encke slicked Keeler and then himself.  Keeler scattered little cold kisses across his chest as he tried to spread himself open, not ready to let Keeler do it, even if what they were about to do was the same and worse.  He was clumsy with it and a little shaky, trying to relax and tell himself that it wouldn’t be that bad, plenty of people liked it, but some guys liked getting fucked and some didn’t, and he didn’t need to do it to know he didn’t.

Keeler was patient, trying to tease him harder with slow kisses along his throat and fingers stroking his thighs, but Encke couldn’t get it up for nerves, so he nudged Keeler’s hand away.  Better to get it over with sooner rather than later, show Keeler it wasn’t that bad so Encke could show him how much better it would be the other way.

It fucking hurt, he knew the first couple of times hurt, but he just never thought it hurt that much.  Like being stabbed in the balls, sharp pain easing off into a dull ache and then shooting back up into his stomach with every tiny move Keeler made, not thrusting but trying to push himself up to kiss.

Deep breaths, it was all about getting through the pain and dealing, he managed to run four miles a day and ignore the pain of old scars and new bruises, so he would manage the pain of this too.

Keeler watched him dead silent, not moving a muscle except to stroke Encke’s face and neck with light fingers.  They somehow finished like that, Keeler quiet and tentatively tugging Encke down for a kiss as he came.  Encke rearranged them so he could pull Keeler over to lie with his head on Encke’s chest, and he nudged Keeler’s wandering hands away, gone soft and not interested in getting off from sex for the first time in his life.  Keeler would be a good fuck once he got over being scared, and they wouldn’t have to do this more than a few times.  

He thought Keeler was going to fall asleep like that, head on his chest and feet tangled together in the little narrow bed, and when Keeler finally pushed himself up to go to his own bunk, he tried not to wonder if he’d done something wrong.  Keeler didn’t say a word, pulling on one of Encke’s undershirts and brushing a dry kiss across his cheek before he climbed into his own bed.  

Still no trust after all that.

* * *

And of course he had to deal with Fifty, because of course the dumb little shit was just as much trouble as he always had been.

As if Encke didn’t have enough shit to deal with anyway besides bailing out his skinny ass all over again, Fifty picking fights with assholes twice his size trying to claw his way up even when it meant busted ribs.  Encke let Cassius deal with the first couple fights, not interested in dealing with Fifty or his little sidekick Thirty.  But Fifty just kept at it, stubborn and self destructive, trying to get himself killed, trying to fuck everything up, and probably would have kept at it if Encke hadn’t stepped in to keep him from getting his ass kicked, just like always.  He tried to give Fifty a chance, but the little shit fucked it up trying to claw his way off the bottom again, instead of just staying where he belonged.

Then it was Encke’s turn to fuck it up, fucking Fifty in the showers after because everything had been simpler between them than it ever would be with Keeler.  No condom that time or the time after or the time after, because Encke was a dumbshit and never planned for any of it to happen.  But he probably already had anything Fifty did, and he told himself it was fine since Keeler was protected from it anyway.  Tried not to think about it when Keeler curled against him for a few minutes every night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Noodles, I stole the little note scene from [JustEight](http://justeight.tumblr.com/post/41613673440/and-because-im-a-tease-here-3-be-late-again%22). All my best ideas are stolen from other people.
> 
>  


	27. Cain

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?  You think you can just walk in here and whip your dick out, you little gypsy piece of shit?”  Cain turned just as Encke came in the locker room, straight for him as Cain was trying to shrug out of his jacket, no fucking peace to just take a goddamn shower without getting his ass chewed out or having to keep Abel distracted.  

Cain let himself be pushed, not as stupid as that poor bastard Titus who’d taken a swing at Encke.  As much as Cain wanted to do it, he wasn’t a fucking moron.  The two seconds of satisfaction it would give would never be worth the reaming and week in the brig he’d get for it, Abel left alone to fuck or get dragged off by anyone.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing going after some asshole twice your size?  You think just because Bering got you a nice new name you’re dangerous to anyone except your navigator, _Cain_?”  Encke shoved him again, trying to get a reaction out of him, backing him into a corner.  Cain let him; what the fuck else was he supposed to do?  He stumbled back over something, a tangled up towel or some fucker’s shoe, losing his balance as Encke pushed him again.

Cain reached a hand out accidentally, grabbing for Encke without thinking about it and having his wrist caught instead.  Encke shoved him back against the wall finally, hauling his wrist up over his head and standing too close, just like the good old days.  It made his shoulder ache, sore from trying to throw off Titus and now having to arch his back and tilt his head up against the wall to keep from having his arm twisted.

It’d been years since they’d done this, but they were right back where they’d been, Encke’s hands warm and heavy, looming and making Cain look up at him.  Encke pressed Cain’s wrist harder against the wall and shoved a knee between his legs, watching without expression as Cain had to arch his back further and spread his knees to keep his balance.  

Encke put a hand on his face, and Cain almost took a swing at him then, but Encke just put a finger under his jaw and tipped his chin up.  He tried to glare, tried to make himself spit in that sanctimonious asshole’s face, but then Encke’s mouth was on his and he was already getting hard.  

Just like the good old days, a look and a shove was all it took, worse than Abel.

Encke’s mouth was warm, warmer than he remembered, Cain’s skin burning with the fight and the cold metal wall against his back, and Cain just let Encke fuck his mouth with his tongue.  Because it was just like the good old days, before Encke decided to get a stick jammed up his ass and do everything by the books, when they’d both been on the outside trying to claw a way in.  Abel didn’t know anything about that, didn’t know how to makes his fucking knees weak and a good thing too, because this was fucking dangerous.

“Thought you were done fucking gypsy trash,” Cain said when Encke let him catch a breath.  “Thought you said you were too good for me. Thought you got promoted to fucking officers.  _Sir_.”

Encke cut him off with another kiss, then, pushing his mouth open and cutting off any objection like he always had, not so rough as he could have been but just rough enough to keep control of everything.  Cain pushed back against him, his mouth and teeth sore where Titus had caught him, but Abel didn’t know how to do this, didn’t know how to graze his teeth along a split lip, just enough to brighten it without opening it up again, didn’t know how to get him hard with just a look and a slow trail of lips down his neck.  

Fuck it, it was dangerous, but what wasn’t anymore?  Cain brought his free hand behind Encke’s head and fumbled for the zipper of his flight suit.

“You always were too easy,” Encke said, leaning back and letting go of him just long enough to pull his shirt off, cutting him off with another bruising kiss.

Asshole.  Like Cain had walked in here and begged to be fucked.

The wall was colder, Encke’s hands hotter, both of them half naked now, Encke palming him through his uniform and Cain trying to get his own damn pants off.  If he was going to get fucked, he might as well get off from it, and sooner rather than later.  

The bastard laughed when he realized Cain was stripping, and Encke pulled away to sit on the bench and pull the rest of his flight suit off, leaving Cain there fumbling with his zipper and trying not to look like this had been his idea.  Fuck, Encke looked good naked, always had, too many years fucking skinny little navigators and he’d forgotten that.

Encke leaned back on the bench, watching him shove out of his pants, and Cain didn’t even care when the bastard put a hand in his hair as he knelt to suck Encke’s cock.

Just like the old days, cold floor and Encke’s hand on the back of his head, heavy enough so they both could pretend this wasn’t Cain’s idea and that he was doing it fast just to get it over with, not because he was hard just at the thought of finally being fucked again after so long.  Too long, too dangerous to let anyone that close, but with Encke it had always been different, even though that made it even more dangerous.  Cain looked up at him, Encke leaning back with his eyes closed and his legs spread, totally under control even though it was Cain on his knees.  

Encke caught him then, glancing down laughing and Cain was so fucking tempted to just bite him for ruining it, the prick.  

Almost did when Encke shoved him away suddenly, sending Cain sprawling out on his ass on the cold floor like earlier.  Didn’t have time to get his feet under him or even tell Encke to go fuck himself, Encke had always been too quick for him, hauling Cain up and shoving him at the showers, following close enough for Cain to feel the heat of him.

He was going to turn and shove the asshole against the wall, try to get some leverage, but that had never worked and he didn’t know why he even fucking tried anymore.  Encke pressed up against him, pinning him agains the wall again, but this time Encke turned on the water.  Too hot, everything cold metal and hot steam, and Cain couldn’t breathe between the steam and Encke’s mouth on his neck and Encke’s hand on his cock, trying not to cling to the asshole but not able to trust his knees.

Didn’t have to for long, Encke spinning him against the wall and pressing up against him, water running down between them and it didn’t fucking matter if it was too hot because Encke was too and there was no getting away from him, and Cain forgot why he’d even want to when Encke started to press into him with no prelude.  At least when Cain had fucked Abel the first time, he’d tried to spread the little blond open first.  But this wasn’t Cain’s first time, and Encke knew that, the fucker.  

“Fuck, not so hard,” Cain hissed against the wall, his cheek pressed to the cold metal and his face hot.

“Not what you used to say.  You going soft fucking navigators, _Cain_?” Encke murmured in his ear, running a hand down Cain’s side as he just kept pushing, slow and steady.  

Cain growled and arched back into him, grabbing the shower head to keep his balance as Encke pulled Cain’s ass back into him.  He could take this, he could always take it, didn’t fucking matter if it hurt, that just made it better.  Encke pulled out of him slow, almost all the way out, just to make him take it all over again and pushed back in harder this time, both hands on Cain’s ass and fingers digging in.  

Again with the fucking teasing, all the way out and just holding there, the only movement the water spraying over them and Encke just standing there waiting for something.  

Cain tried to push back against him, just to get it over with, craning his head back over his shoulder to glare at the fucker but Encke held his ass in place and wouldn’t fuck him.  “The fuck are you waiting for?” Cain demanded.

Encke smiled lazily and pushed into him then, one long, rough stroke, wrapping an arm around Cain’s chest as he shuddered.  It was too much, he barely felt it when Encke grabbed one of his hands and dragged it down to his cock, both of their hands wrapping around it, Encke’s over Cain’s.  “Make yourself come for me, baby, just like you used to,” Encke murmured into his shoulder, and it was just as good as it had been then.

Cain stroked himself with Encke fucking him, barely caring anymore with Encke’s hand in his hair to pull his head back, Encke’s teeth on his neck.  He put a hand on the wall to keep his balance, letting Encke just fuck him like they used to before it had mattered and he was just so fucking close, leaning down away from Encke against the wall.

Encke pulled him back, tall enough and strong enough to just fuck him however he wanted, sharp teeth on his shoulder pushing him over to come into his own hand and go stiff against Encke as the asshole just fucked him harder, pressing him against the cold wall choking on hot steam and Encke’s weight and finally the hot rush of having someone come inside him after so long.

Cain breathed heavily against the wall, too fucking tired to care that Encke didn’t pull out right away, taking deep breaths against his shoulder.  He let Encke pull him away from the wall and stand him under the shower head, let Encke rinse them both off with slow hands and kiss beads of water off his collarbone, too tired and sore and fucking _nostalgic_ to care if Encke threw this back at him later.

Cain followed him out and gathered up his clothes as Encke toweled off and got dressed, trying not to act like Deimos fawning around just because they’d fucked.  He glared at Encke’s smug look and pulled his clothes on still damp, anything to get out of there faster and find Abel to fuck good and hard.

He caught a look at himself in the mirror as Encke turned to leave, the dull ache in his shoulder coming clear as he turned to get a good look at the darkening bite mark on the back of his shoulder.  No fucking question where that had come from, Abel and anyone else who saw him with his shirt off would know exactly how it had gotten there, no other reason for a bite mark like that.   

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” Cain snapped, prodding at the bright edges of it in the mirror.  “What am I supposed to tell my navigator when he sees this?”

“Tell him the truth,” Encke shrugged as he got to the door.  “Or are you still not very good at that?”

Cain turned to glare at him, would have fucking punched him then if Encke had been close enough.  Bad enough to get fucked, he had to have all of it from basic thrown back at him too.  Cain could play that game, though.  “Go fuck yourself, _Eight_ ,” he spat at Encke’s back.

Encke turned around and gave him a long look, and Cain knew he’d pay for it later, one way or another.  If Encke had ever done anything well, it was fuck and hold a grudge.  

And then Encke smiled, and Cain knew exactly how he was going to be paying for it every single damn day for the rest of this fucking suicide mission Abel had gotten them into.  “Don’t need to,” Encke said slowly.  “That’s what you’re here for, _Nine_.  Or was it Fifty?  Hard to keep track, it was so long ago.”  Encke shrugged and smiled, nothing pleasant or uncertain about it, and left Cain there alone.  


	28. Encke

“ _Say it_.”  Encke slammed him back against the wall, hand twisted in his hair. 

Fifty snarled in his face, trying to bite but jerked back by the hair as Encke fucked him harder.  “ _Fuck you_.”  So Encke did, pinning Fifty between him and the wall, letting Fifty’s hair go to shove one of the little shit’s knees back as far as it would go, holding him up with one hand on his ass.  

He bit Fifty’s ear, still half dressed with Fifty naked and barely slicked.  Fucked him rough, not caring about the way Fifty’s blunt nails dug into his bare shoulder, trying to hang on as Encke pounded him against the wall.

“Do it, baby, come for me, _say it_ —“ 

Fifty snapped his teeth again, snarling and vicious and his cock rubbing hot between them.  “Fuck— _harder_ —“ Fifty gasped finally, arching his back against the wall.  “Fuck you, you bastard, bend me over and fuck me harder—“

Encke turned and threw him on the desk, not bothering to pretend to care when Fifty hissed and winced as he hit hard.  Just flipped him over and hauled his ass up, pushing into him again.  He was so fucking skinny, still just as fucking beautiful as he had been in basic even if he was more dangerous now, skinny and breakable and perfect.

Fifty scrabbled for his hand, yanking Encke’s hand off the desk and shoving it on his cock, pushy for how much he bitched about this.  Encke laughed and jerked him tight, like in basic when it had been good, when he’d cared whether or not the crazy little fuck had enjoyed it or not.  And when Fifty came with a snarled curse and a moan through his teeth it pushed Encke over the edge too, fucking him through it, dragging it out.

He dragged lips across the back of Fifty’s neck as he finished, wanting to flip him over for a kiss but sure he’d get bitten.  “Tomorrow night, half hour earlier,” Encke said, pulling out finally.  He gave Fifty a slap on the ass and threw his clothes at him.

Fifty yanked his clothes back on almost as fast as he’d torn them off, glaring daggers at Encke, and Encke wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t have pulled a knife if he thought he could get away with it.  “The fuck am I supposed to tell my navigator about this, sneaking into central every single night—“

Encke gave him a look.  “ _Fifty_.  Do I look like I give a fuck?  Figure it out,” he said, sitting to pull on his shirt.

Fifty stopped, jacket twisted in his hand between them.  “Why should I?  Your new _bitch_ not putting out, Eight?” he spat.  “Everybody says he has you on a short leash, maybe he wants to hear all about this—“

He stood up, grabbing Fifty’s face to shut him up.  “Leave Keeler the fuck out of this.”

“Or what?  You’ll fuck me til I learn to follow orders?” Fifty sneered, and it almost staggered Encke back a step with how much he looked like Keeler that second night, hiding behind a sneer to keep from showing how scared he was.  “Didn’t work last time, you think it’s gonna work this time?  I’m not afraid of you,” Cain said slowly, and they both knew that had always been a lie.

He shoved Cain against the wall, not interested in thinking about it.  “Be here tomorrow night or you will be.”  Encke left Cain there in his office, didn’t look back when he heard the metal rattle as Cain kicked his desk.  Sacha had always wanted to make officer; not Encke’s fault the only way the little shit was ever going to get behind an officer’s desk was by whoring himself for it, like everything else.

* * *

Keeler was watching something curled up in the top bunk when he made it back to the room.  “What you watching, baby?” Encke asked, slinging off his jacket as he came in the door, sore from training and sore from fucking Fifty.  He rolled his shoulders, wincing with the raw marks from Fifty’s nails.

Keeler flushed to the tips of his ears, trying to close his computer and failing, too flustered to hit the pause button, and Encke laughed when he realized Keeler was as hard as he’d ever seen him, curled up in his bunk watching porn.  “Is it that good?” Encke asked, going to lean on Keeler’s bunk to see what it was.  “Anything I should watch?”

Keeler didn’t say anything, looking mortified as Encke realized what it was.  Two blondes, air brush pretty, but . . . women.  Naked, but kissing, and not much else.  Encke gave Keeler a doubtful look.

“You just—you didn’t seem like you liked it last time—the last time we—I’m not very good at sex,” Keeler said all in a rush.  “Puck said to watch something.”

“Yeah, but . . . lesbians?” Encke asked, frowning at it.  Keeler just shrugged, blushing.  “Are you into women?”

Keeler flushed deeper, drawing his knees up to his chest.  “I don’t know, I just . . . don’t like watching with, you know, with men.”  Encke took Keeler’s hand, kissing his palm.  “They—it always looks like it hurts,” Keeler finished, curling his fingers against Encke’s cheek.  Encke didn’t laugh, kissing Keeler’s hand until some of his embarrassment eased away.

He coaxed Keeler down with little kisses to his finger tips, teasing him with kisses across his wrist and palm until Keeler let himself be curled into Encke’s bunk, naked with Keeler’s computer balanced on the bed.  Encke mostly ignored it, spooning Keeler and teasing him harder, bored with the porn but enjoying making Keeler squirm against him.  Keeler didn’t make a sound, breath just coming heavier as he tried to twist back and forth between kissing Encke over his shoulder and the screen.

Encke reached over eventually and put the computer on the floor, pulling Keeler over to straddle him, gentle when Keeler went stiff.  “Shhh, baby, shhh, not gonna do anything.  Just touching, I promise,” Encke said, stroking Keeler’s back and arms as he pulled away a little.  “I promise, baby.”

“You promised to stop calling me _baby_ ,” Keeler murmured, leaning back down to bite his ear, a little bolder now, and Encke’s cock jumped at it.

Keeler watched him fish the lube out, the green apple smell not so bad when there was no cinnamon to go with it.  Encke slicked his fingers, raising his eyebrows in question as he brought a hand behind Keeler, and Encke wanted so badly to fuck him then even if it would be better for the waiting.

He teased Keeler open with the tip of one finger, barely anything, watching Keeler’s face to tell him to stop.  Just slow little circles, Keeler rocking against him and kissing delicate little bruises along his neck and collar bone and their cocks rubbing together hot.  He let Keeler ease against him, rocking back and forward, sucking Encke’s ear as he decided how slow to take it.

“You’re not—this isn’t boring for you?” Keeler breathed, biting back a little moan.  Encke looked up at him, wishing he could twist his hand in Keeler’s sheet of pale hair and pull him down to kiss.  

“Nah, baby, I could do this all night.  You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, stroking Keeler’s cock.  Keeler cupped Encke’s face, leaning down to bite his lip and kiss slow and silent, shuddering as he came.  He was so fucking skinny as Encke held him after, Keeler curled on his chest and breathing slow.  Skinny and breakable and perfect, all lean muscle and skinny legs as Encke stroked his hair.


	29. Deimos

“You heard?” Deimos asked as he sat next to Cain, watching the lieutenant across the mess, flirting with the rest of the navigators.  Phobos hung off Keeler, glaring daggers past him to where Abel sat blushing at the end of the table.  

Cain glared at him, their mushy excuse for a dinner, at Keeler’s back.  Jealous, maybe, always so twisted up over Eight since they’d started fucking again.  “Eight’s gonna be pissed.  His new bitch won’t look so pretty after he gets his nose broken.”

Deimos shrugged, starting his dinner.  “Eight probably already knows about it.”  Phobos came back every night breathless with gushing over Keeler’s flirting at the lab; the lieutenant had probably already fucked half the navigators, busy working his way through the other half.  Deimos didn’t think Phobos had gotten fucked yet, not with his breathless little crush still alive, but it could only be a matter of time.

“Wouldn’t be fucking him if he knew,” Cain snapped.  “Abel says they’re fucking, so Eight doesn’t know.  He’s got better taste than that,” Cain said bitterly, scowling down at his tray of gray mash.

Deimos watched him poke at it, looking for a way to make Cain drop it.  A little pain, a little liquor, a quick blowjob had always worked in basic, something to get Sacha’s mind off it while Aleks fucked him, making him forget all about Eight, but that didn’t work so well anymore.  “It’s not like he wanted it, if Laius is involved with it,” Deimos whispered finally.

Cain’s back stiffened.  “You don’t think I can fucking tell the difference?” he hissed.  “Seen enough of that shit to know the difference, but it never made a difference to _Eight_.  Bede and Laius’ll show everybody that fucking video, anybody that doesn’t want to watch it’ll get jumped for being pansies, and Keeler’ll get his pretty fucking face broken for being a _whore_.”

They both went silent as Encke walked by, giving them both a cold look, but mostly Cain, who glared back.  Looking for an insubordination charge if he wasn’t careful, as if Eight didn’t already have enough ways to force him on his knees.  Even if Deimos knew there wasn’t always much forcing involved.  Sacha was a whore, too needy and looking for approval even if all he got was fucked over the lieutenant’s desk, but Eight didn’t deserve him, not the way Deimos did.  Eight pretended to protect him; Deimos actually did.

Deimos brushed Cain’s thigh under the table, flashing his knife and raising and eyebrow in Eight’s direction.  Frowned when Cain shook his head.  They should have taken out Eight when they had the chance those last few weeks of basic, but Sacha had always been too soft for that even after they killed Six.

He was harder now, after what Eight had done to him, after what One had done to him, after what Deimos had done to him.  But Deimos knew that broken, soft-hearted, _weak_ sixteen-year-old Sacha was still in there, would always know where to look for the edges of that pain even if Cain hated that he knew.  Deimos was the only one who knew, no matter how many pretty, breakable, _broken_ navigators Cain went through.

He reached to catch Cain’s wrist as he stood, ready to rush into something stupid.  “Where are you going?” Deimos hissed.

Cain shot him a glare, the one that said he’d find a way to make Deimos pay for this later, to pay for knowing all the raw edges of him.  “To talk to Cassius,” Cain spat.


	30. Encke

Encke could feel Fifty watching Keeler, following him with his eyes through mess, tracking him even if Fifty went out of his way to avoid Encke, just like the good old days.  Everybody watched Keeler, the fighters at least, mutters and laughs not hidden quickly enough when Encke walked into a room.  He didn’t know how Keeler could stand it.

So he’d been expecting it, he just hadn’t been expecting it like this.  Twenty or thirty fighters in one of the empty hangers, some watching intently and others just bored, smoking and talking like it was a game on the screen and not something awful.

The room went quiet when he came in, dead silent except for the tiny sounds playing off someone’s tablet in the middle of it all.  Encke recognized Keeler’s voice even though he’d never heard Keeler make a sound in bed, and now he was listening to the reason why, Keeler’s breathy, strangled gasps under the awful slap of skin on skin and another voice on the video demanding _louder_.

He caught one look at it as he turned it off, Keeler from behind, someone’s hand in his hair keeping him from hiding his face in his arms, shot so that anyone who watched it could pretend they were fucking Keeler like that, see every expression he made.  Perfectly planned for it.  Keeler’s head was jerked back by the hair just as Encke turned it off, Keeler looking over his shoulder with pure hatred, straight into the camera.  Straight at Encke as he turned it off.

Encke ground his jaw, memorizing each and every face in the room.  Curled his hand around the tablet, protecting it even though he wanted to throw it across the room and pound the pieces to dust, keeping Keeler’s humiliation close to him so he could give the hateful thing to Cassius to track down everyone who’d so much as ever lain eyes on the thing.  “You four, brig for a week,” he said to the closest ones, the ones stupid enough to get caught close.  “The rest of you, hard training for a month.  If I _ever_ hear about this again, if I hear anybody even so much as whispers it _exists_ , you’re all getting time in the brig.”

And then there was Fifty and Thirty in the back, Fifty quickly hiding his shock behind his cigarette and a bored look, staring down Encke defiantly.  Of course Fifty was there to see it.

Encke stood by the one door out, waiting with his arms crossed over his chest as they all filed out, Fifty and Thirty dawdling in the back, looking for a way out of it, the little cowards.  Encke memorized each and every face, to be sure they all regretted this so long as they were under his command.

He cut Fifty away from Thirty as they tried to sidle past him, putting an arm across the door between them.  “Keep walking, Thirty,” he said quietly as the little shit hesitated, eyes on Fifty.  He watched them exchange looks, and if he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t get knifed in the back one night, he was at least sure of Cassius standing there outside the door just then, making sure it didn’t get ugly.

Fifty watched him warily just out of arm’s reach, not quite looking him in the eye.

Encke grabbed him by the jacket and swung him against the wall, more pleased that he should have been with the sound of Fifty’s head cracking against the metal and the air whooshing out of him.  “You stay the fuck away from Keeler, you hear me, Fifty?”

“Or what?  _Sir?_ ” Fifty sneered, and Encke curled his fist next to the little shit’s head, not about to have his bluff called.

“Or I’ll make sure word gets around exactly why One has you on that special little project and how you got through basic,” Encke said quietly, watching Fifty’s jaw clench.  “You so much as look at Keeler again and I’ll make sure everybody knows just what you are.”  He kept his hand next to Fifty’s head, watching him flush, waiting for him to break and give Encke an excuse to beat the shit out of him.  But Fifty wouldn’t take the bait, keeping his damn mouth shut for once in his life, glaring up at him.  “See how long you last then.”

That did it, Fifty’s fear and resentment breaking through just enough to give Encke the excuse he needed.  He shook Fifty against the wall, throwing him away, watching him stumble out into the middle of the hanger.  Fifty rounded on him, scared and ready to have the shit beaten out of him but ready to stand his ground when it happened.  

“Get out,” Encke snapped, needing to punch someone so badly.  “ _Get out_ ,” he yelled when Fifty just stood there looking at him dumb, and didn’t watch him hurry out.

He stood there glaring at his boots so long Cassius came in, standing just out of reach, reading his mood.

“Who told you about it?” Encke demanded.

A pause as Cassius checked his tablet.  “Reliant.  Said to take care of it before you found out, but I figured you’d want to deal with it yourself.”

Encke looked at him finally.  “The navigator told you?  Abel?”  If Abel knew about it, the rest of the navigators knew about it, and Keeler certainly knew about it.  Encke rubbed his eyes, worrying over how bad a state he’d find Keeler in once he got back to the room.

“Uh, no sir.  Reliant’s fighter, the troublemaker.  Said he heard about it from Bede and Laius, said not to tell you about it.”  Encke glared at Cassius, grinding his jaw.  Of course Fifty wanted to make sure it didn’t get back to him, keep the game going as long as possible so the photos of Keeler could get around longer.

He didn’t think about it until later, and wasn’t that the story of his fucking life.  Didn’t think about all the reasons Fifty had to not want him to find out about the video, not when Keeler left him alone in his bunk that night like every night, because Fifty had always been afraid of him, and Keeler always would be.


	31. Encke

Fifty was contrite on his knees after that, beautiful and obedient and barely bothering to hide his resentment.  Encke tried to pretend to be gentle, tried to make it something like when they were on leave together, when he’d thought they both wanted it.  Fifty was better at hiding what he was thinking than he’d ever been, face shuttering closed during briefings and dropping to his knees any time they had to be alone together, never quite making eye contact anymore.  

Thirty trailed him everywhere, just like basic, and Encke tried not to think about how that had ended for Six.  Had more time to think about it than he ever wanted one night after fucking Fifty at the office, walking out and leaving Fifty there alone like most nights, when he ran into Thirty in the corridor outside central.  

Didn’t run into him—he’d have been dead if he had—instead he had the whole length of the empty half-lit corridor to watch Thirty slowly get closer, trying to decide if it was worth it to chew Thirty out for being in central past crew curfew.  Decided that slowly bleeding to death alone in the half dark wasn’t worth it, and let Thirty pass him by on the way to meet Fifty, and went home to Keeler, safe and shy and predictable, all tentative kisses and none of Fifty’s snarling energy.

* * *

It was a routine, and if it wasn’t the one he wanted, it was at least better than the jagged breaks in his routine.  And if only it were so easy to solve as breaking heads.

Puck marched into his office one morning, sucking his lip ring and looking about ready to burst a blood vessel.  He shoved a tablet in Encke’s face with no prelude.  “Sign this.”  Cassius stood in the doorway, face blank and having made no move to stop Puck.

“The fuck got into you?” Encke asked, peering around the little shit to glare at Cassius.  Not much use having an office or a sergeant if Puck just marched the fuck in whenever he felt like it.

Puck pursed his lips, pushing his lip piercing out into the cold light.  “Keeler is _not_ happy.  You’ve let this sit all morning, now sign it.”

“Can I at least fucking read it before I sign it?”

“One of your fighters raped his navigator,” Puck snapped.  “Read it and sign it so he can get his transfer.”

Encke glanced from Puck to Cassius, both of them waiting in disapproving silence while he read over the preliminary report.  Given to Keeler that morning, while Encke was doing briefings and supervising simulations, and Encke could only imagine how that went down if he had Puck breathing down his neck about it three hours later.  Puck snatched it out of his hands as soon as he’d pressed his thumbprint to it.

Encke frowned after him, and at Cassius when Puck was gone back to Keeler’s side of central.  “You gossip with him, what the fuck does he have his panties in a twist over?”

Cassius just shrugged, glancing at the dented side of the desk, mouth pressed thin.  Left without a word, following Puck out.

Encke sighed and put his head in his hands.  Cassius knew about Fifty, even if he’d never say anything, and if Cassius knew, then Puck knew, and if Puck knew then Keeler almost certainly knew.  Puck and Cassius might try to keep it to themselves to spare Keeler’s feelings, but not if they thought Encke was going to fuck Keeler over worse than he already had been.

* * *

Cook peered at them over his glasses two hours later, eyes on Keeler, ignoring Encke.  

He was only there as a formality anyway, Bering too busy to deal with it and some nod needing to be made to an equal representation from both sides.  Keeler for the victim, Encke for the accused rapist.  How he was supposed to in good faith represent a fighter he’d rather just kill, he didn’t know, not with Keeler barely covering his shaking where they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Cook’s desk.

“So what would you like me to do about it, lieutenant?” Cook said finally, after Keeler outlined the navigator’s story and Encke outlined the fighter’s record.  Good scores, clean disciplinary record, better than Encke’s.  Out of basic at the top of his squad, and everyone in the room knew what that meant even if no one said it.  “I can’t transfer every navigator who comes up with some story when he regrets sleeping with his fighter.”

Keeler took a breath and let it out slowly, speaking carefully.  “Sir, with all due respect, that’s not what he—“

Cook waved a hand.  “And I’m sure his fighter would tell it different.  We’re not getting involved in a lovers’ quarrel when the boy may just as easily change his mind next week.  I would think you of all people would appreciate how rumors fly and stories change, lieutenant.”  Keeler inhaled sharply, his jaw tight.  “We don’t have time for this.  I’d like a report on the engine by the end of the week, if you can contain the hysterics enough to get it done.”  Cook waved them out finally, his dead-eyed assistant watching Keeler too closely as they left.

Encke followed him out, one step behind, watching the way Keeler steadied himself with fingertips against the wall of the corridor.  Said nothing when Keeler flicked Encke’s hand away as they stepped into the elevator.

“You okay?” Encke asked as the numbers ticked up.

Keeler didn’t look at him, just frowned at the floor where he stood balancing himself discreetly against the wall with his fingertips.  “I’m _fine_ , I’m not made of glass.”

“You don’t look fine, you gonna faint again—?“

Keeler glared at him.  “I’m _fine_.”  He took a deep breath, steadying himself.  “This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with this, I know they don’t care.  But it’s not a lover’s quarrel, we can’t leave him there.”

“I know, baby.”  Keeler glared at him again, jaw tight and his whole body tense.  “Keeler—Hector—I’m sorry.  We’ll figure something out, we won’t just leave him there,” Encke said.  Keeler bit his lip, glancing down and back up at Encke, looking for something.  Encke pulled him to his chest, squeezing him tight as the lift slowed.  “We’ll figure something out, it’ll be okay,” he said, even though he had no idea how.

* * *

There wasn’t a solution for it, not a legal solution, not a solution Encke wanted to think about for too long or admit he’d had a part of.  Couldn’t transfer a new navigator in, not when they knew the fighter was a predator, couldn’t leave the first navigator there.  Couldn’t spare the numbers to break up a team when they were headed straight into enemy territory.  Couldn’t do nothing, with every night the navigator was left there one more night for Keeler to shiver alone in the top bunk, sipping his scotch and worrying himself to exhaustion.

So Cassius quietly arranged for the fighter to take a _bad fall_ during training, a fall that left him nearly blind in one eye and unfit for active duty while medical monitored his bruised kidneys and mangled hands, and Puck just as quietly arranged for the navigator to be transferred, and none of them said anything about it to Keeler.  The best any of them could say was that they didn’t know for certain that the new fighter would be a rapist, which was the best anyone could have said for the first one too.

* * *

He took it out on Fifty, who was the last person he should have taken it out on, but every goddamn time Fifty opened his mouth in training or watched Keeler across the mess when he thought Encke wasn’t watching, he found himself needing to fuck someone rough, someone who wouldn’t flinch away every time he moved too quickly, someone who he knew exactly how to make come hard and not worry about how he felt after.

Encke didn’t have to worry about moving slow with Fifty, didn’t have to worry about checking every three seconds if he wanted to stop, didn’t have to worry about Fifty deciding they were done and walking away.  And when he thought about why he could have that with Fifty and not Keeler, he couldn’t make himself look in the mirror every morning, so he stopped trying.

It was easier to not think about why it was easy, when he went back to the office late and leaned back in his rickety chair, too exhausted to fuck Fifty over the desk.  He held Fifty back against his chest, sucking dark bruises on the warm skin behind his ear and stroking his cock.  

Fifty twisted against him, all lean muscle trying to be fucked faster and harder and rougher, skinny legs trying to balance on Encke’s lap as he fucked him slow and deliberate.  Encke caught his lip and bit as they kissed, throbbing harder every time Fifty moaned and arched back against him, trying to make Encke jerk him faster.  But he just thumbed the tip of Fifty’s cock, hot and heavy and insistent, teasing Fifty and making him come with a little shudder and snarl.

He came with Fifty bent backwards against him, biting his ear and gasping for it needy like when it had been good between them, and he’d have held Fifty there against him forever if he could have.

Fifty shoved himself out of Encke’s grasp before either of them were really done, pulling his clothes back on as he hurried for the door.

“The fuck is wrong with you this time?” Encke demanded, too tired for this shit.

“I’m not your _bitch_ , Eight, so don’t ever fucking call me by his name,” Cain snapped over his shoulder, leaving Encke there to rub his eyes and wonder what the fuck he was doing.

* * *

Keeler looked up at him from the middle of the floor when he got back to the room, sitting in the middle of a nest he’d made of their mattresses, pulled off the walls and the bunks snapped away.  Cheeks flushed pink, looking as pleased with himself as Encke had ever seen him.

Sweet and shy and unpredictable, more trusting than Encke had ever expected or ever deserved from him.

Encke swallowed hard and eased himself down next to Keeler, wanting to let Keeler lean in to kiss him, wanting to be everything Keeler wanted and needed, but he wasn’t, he was just some asshole fucking his navigator and anybody else who’d let him on the side.

Should have said it weeks ago.  Should never have done it in the first place.  “I fucked someone else,” he said.

“I know,” Keeler said, and shrugged when Encke gave him a shocked look.  “It’s a small ship, word gets around.  The office wasn’t very subtle, and I hear about most things, eventually.”  Keeler shrugged again, and Encke knew he meant the video.

 _I’ve heard it’s very good_.

Of course Keeler had heard about it, had probably heard that Encke had seen it.

“Who is he?” Keeler asked, changing the subject.

“Just a . . .” Encke sighed.  Rubbed his eyes, since there was no explaining Fifty to Keeler.  “Just somebody I knew in basic, came in with the new squads.  Nobody important.”

Keeler put a thin hand in Encke’s, drawing circles on his palm with the tip of one finger.  “I don’t mind if you want to keep seeing him,” Keeler said after a while.  “Someone I knew in training came in with the new squads too, I just didn’t know how to bring it up.  I’d hate for . . . I’d hate for something to happen, and have us regret not being with people we cared about.”

“Baby, it’s not like that,” Encke sighed, not sure where to even start.

“It’s fine, really,” Keeler said, brushing his lips across Encke’s cheek quick and retreating, embarrassed.  “My, um, my friend is fine with it, if yours is.  If you are,” he added, flushed pink and head bowed.  “I know I’m not—I’m not really what you wanted.”

Encke took a sharp breath, wishing he’d thought about Keeler in any of this, about how it’d look after everything else. “That’s not why, there’s nothing wrong with you—“

“Then why?” Keeler cut him off, quiet and sharp, a thousand times worse than having the sergeant scream at him in basic.

“It’s—complicated.  It’s not because of you, you’re perfect.”  Encke sighed and rubbed his face again.  “You’re perfect,” he said, and meant it.  “It’s just—we go a long way back, is all, it’s hard to explain.”

They sat in silence for a minute, Keeler drawing circles on Encke’s palm and thinking.  “I’d like to make this work,” Keeler said quietly.  “I’d like to make us work, after everything, if you do.  I want there to be an us.  But if something happens, I don’t want to regret anything.”

Let Keeler fuck who he wanted and Encke on the side, like Encke had been doing the whole time.  Like all the waiting and patience and teasing hadn’t meant a goddamn thing, like Encke hadn’t been the one to pull Kratos off him, to show him sex could be good, that not everybody was a pushy asshole.

He took a deep breath and blew it out, because that was pushy asshole talk, the kind of thing Six sneered about in basic, the kind of thing assholes like Bede sneered about belowdecks.  Keeler could fuck who he wanted anyway, Encke already had, and if he wanted to be one of the ones Keeler wanted to fuck, he couldn’t be a pushy asshole about it.

Even if he hated the thought of it.

So he pulled Keeler to him, arm around his shoulder, and decided he’d take whatever Keeler wanted to give.  Let Keeler push him down and strip him naked, let Keeler straddle him and get the condoms, let Keeler give him a shy smile and ease himself down, whispering about practice.

He was so fucking gorgeous, skinny and perfect and strong, and Encke could have lay on his back and watched him forever, Keeler breathing slowly and smiling down at him, fucking beatific.  Not a hint of pain on his face as he rocked slowly over Encke, stopping to lean down and kiss warm and easy.

Keeler tugged them over to lie on their sides, not a sound out of him except his fast breathing and a soft whisper to rearrange them, to keep Encke from flipping him on his back and covering him, and Encke wished he didn’t understand why without having to ask.  So they lay with one of Keeler’s legs crushed under Encke’s side and Keeler’s other knee drawn up to his chest, uncomfortable but close, nose to nose and near enough for Encke to watch Keeler’s pale eyelashes on his cheek.

He rocked into Keeler, sucking bruises over his collarbone, in the hollow of his neck, wanting to pick Keeler up and do this standing, fast and slick and a little rough, but then he’d miss Keeler’s hands on him, one arm thrown over Encke’s shoulder and the other digging into his thigh.  

Keeler brought his knee up tighter to his chest and braced himself with the leg crushed under Encke’s side, tilting his ass up and trying to be fucked faster, head thrown back so Encke could watch his mouth open with breathy gasps.  He growled into Keeler’s neck, hands on his skinny ass, trying to bring them both off with Keeler’s cock rubbing hot between them and Keeler’s blunt fingers dragging up his thigh, making him shudder.  Keeler pulled Encke into him, trailing fingers over his ass, teasing with the pads of his fingers, delicate and roaming.

Encke yanked Keeler’s hand away, pinning his wrist to the mattress before he thought about it and Keeler froze, tense and terrified.  They both took ragged breaths, Keeler staring at him with big eyes and turning his face away, trying to hunch his shoulders and protect himself but trapped by Encke’s weight.

He took a deep breath, letting it go, letting Keeler’s wrist go.  Keeler was nothing like Fifty, he didn’t have to keep Keeler in line, when it was something they’d already done, when here he was being a hypocrite and fucking Keeler.  “I’m sorry, baby, so sorry,” he whispered into Keeler’s neck, letting his hand go.  “Didn’t mean to scare you, I’m so sorry.”

Keeler took slow breaths, watching him, waiting for something.  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said finally, cupping Encke’s face, and he wanted so badly to pretend they both didn’t know that was a lie, a comfortable sweet lie Keeler told to spare his feelings.

He rocked into Keeler slower, trying to make it sweet, hoping it wasn’t a lie later when Keeler curled against him and whispered how good it was, how much it meant.

And even later, when Keeler murmured the last thing Encke had ever been expecting to hear from him, he hoped and prayed that Keeler knew it was a lie even as he said it, that Keeler knew just as well as he did that there wasn’t any love between them.


	32. Deimos

Deimos stood in the door of Eight’s office, waiting for Sacha to notice him.  He sat on the floor with his back against the desk, boot in his hand and just staring at it.  Deimos waited, like that night in basic, watching Sacha take one deep breath and another, finally yanking his boots on as he pulled back from whatever he was thinking about.  Cain stood up, squaring his shoulders and walking past Deimos without a word.

They walked together in the half dark, back the way Eight had run home to his pretty new navigator, and Deimos thought about suggesting again that they go take care of him.  He’d thought about just ending it when he first ran into Eight alone in the corridor, without Cain’s knowledge, but if he was reasonably sure of getting away with it, he was also reasonably sure Sacha would never forgive him for it, even after everything Eight had done to him.  Deimos would have cut that part out of Cain if he could have, that part that was still Sacha, but Cain hung on tight to it like it was precious, all that pain and brokenness.  And if Deimos hung onto it too, it was for different reasons, and it didn't make him weak like it did Cain.

They walked together in silence, Cain breaking stride only when they got to the room and his step faltered, just a hesitation no one but Deimos would notice.  Sacha hid in plain sight, behind all of Cain’s brash combativeness, and only Deimos knew him well enough to catch when it happened.

“How was training?” Abel asked sleepily as the door closed behind them, half rolling over to watch Cain shrug out of his jacket.  “Wish they didn’t keep you so late every night.”

Cain didn’t answer, just kicked his boots off and crawled up the bed to cover Abel, Deimos left to watch them, hard already.  He kicked off his own boots and threw his jacket with Cain’s, crawling after him, one step behind him in everything.

Abel hummed sleepily between them, naked, soft, and greedy as he reached for both of them.  He was so beautiful and pristine, and Deimos knew exactly why Cain buried his face in Abel’s neck, Abel twisting to kiss them both but focused on Cain.  Abel was perfect, strong and skinny and unbreakable, brave and everything that Sacha used to think he wanted to be, until he’d learned better from Eight, and One, and Deimos.

They’d started fucking weeks ago, after Eight started fucking Cain again, because if Sacha got off on being used and pushed around by Eight, he just as badly needed to use and push around someone else, and trying to push the navigator into something he couldn’t want should have worked.  And Deimos was just as pleasantly surprised when the navigator did want it, didn’t have to be coaxed or intimidated into it like the others had been, just begged for more and twisted between them open and beautiful and naive, as if anything like this could be love.

Even if this Abel was stronger than the previous ones, even if Deimos liked this one better, he and Cain both knew this one would break eventually, just like all the other ones, even if the navigator didn’t know it yet.  Cain would break this Abel just like all the other ones, and this Abel would disappear just like all the other ones.  

And when he did, Cain would only have Deimos to lean on, just like after every other navigator, just like in basic, because only Deimos knew all the jagged broken parts of him.  The parts a soft, sheltered, earth-born navigator would never understand, the parts he would pity, with barely concealed contempt, before he used it as an excuse to find someone better, someone undamaged.  Even if Cain ever let Abel see that part of him, Abel would never understand it like Deimos did, would never cherish it like Deimos did, because on earth they could throw away all their broken, useless things, instead of being forced by the colonies to find a use for them and make them beautiful.

He watched it happen, just like all the other times, and if it was slower this time it was only because Cain knew it was happening and Sacha didn’t want it to happen again, all Cain’s little cruelties adding up with Sacha’s needy fragility, the navigator lost suffocating under it all.  When Abel gave Deimos hurt, anxious glances _why_ , Deimos said nothing, because all of Sacha’s pain and desperation was what made Cain belong to Deimos, and Deimos was never going to share that, not with a navigator, not even with this one. It wasn't selfish, it was protecting Sacha from being hurt by anyone else.

So he just watched Cain do it, pushing Abel away with all the subtle callousness he’d learned from Eight, the bullying and the cruel endearments, the sneered dismissals, the public humiliations and the private pain wrapped in false kindnesses.  And if none of it was as overt as what Eight had done to him, it was only because Sacha wanted so badly to keep this navigator, but that didn’t make it stop, only made it slower.

When it finally happened, Deimos knew it before Cain did, maybe even knew it before Abel did.  He knew as soon as Phobos stopped hanging off Keeler in mess, when Phobos stopped spending his nights with Porthos, because Keeler had never been and never would be interested in someone like Phobos, no matter how hard Phobos tried.  Phobos wasn’t Keeler’s type, any more than Phobos was Deimos’ type, and as soon as Deimos realized that, he realized exactly who was.


	33. Encke

Encke twisted himself in knots trying to figure out who else was fucking Keeler, spending his nights with Keeler draped over him, telling himself it didn’t matter who else it was because Keeler came home every night to _him_ , but spent his days glaring murder at Thirty’s navigator hanging off Keeler at meals anyway.

He didn’t know for sure that they were fucking, but it sure looked like it, Puck sitting next to Keeler rolling his eyes at Phobos, Phobos glaring daggers at Puck and any of the other navigators stupid enough to get close, Fifty and Thirty watching across the mess like a pair of carrion crows.  Encke wanted and didn’t want to know for certain, needing to know if Keeler was fucking Thirty’s navigator so he could chase the navigator off and keep Keeler from getting knifed in a dark corridor, not wanting to know because if he didn’t, then he could pretend it was just him who made Keeler forget his perfect cold front, who made Keeler arch his back and come with a little whimpered moan, louder every time.

Even if he knew he wasn’t the only one, Keeler’s toes icy cold most nights Encke fell into bed beside him, but warm a few nights a week, after Keeler had been with his _friend_ while Encke was fucking Fifty, and Encke had to keep himself from thinking where else Keeler’s mouth had been when Keeler traced warm hands over his chest at night, kissing away his bruises and scrapes from Fifty and from training.  So instead he concentrated on trying to make Keeler forget all about whoever else it was, ignoring the awful cinnamon taste of the condoms and trying to ignore Keeler’s whispered endearments after.  As badly as he wanted to believe everything Keeler murmured against his chest, he couldn’t listen and not wonder who else Keeler had said it to, and which of them Keeler really meant it for.

And when Encke finally saw him walking away from their room one night, he had to go yank Cassius out of bed to run laps to keep himself from punching the navigator or shaking Keeler.

If Keeler was Encke’s type, skinny and broken and in need of protecting, then Encke was sure Keeler’s type, big and dumb and strung along by his dick.  Right down to the fucking mohawk, and if Encke had any relief that Thirty and his navigator stayed the fuck away from Keeler after Porthos started hanging around, it wasn’t much better glaring down his own lookalike sneaking out of his room twice a week.

Broad chested and quiet, Porthos was the safer version of Encke, the navigator version, the version of him Keeler could think about taking home to his parents, the version who would know about thirty year single malt and not read embarrassingly old novels for lack of money to buy anything new.  

And, from the way Keeler smiled at Porthos across the table during mess and the tension he’d finally lost when he let Encke fuck him, Porthos was the version Keeler deserved, the version that didn’t scare him with the risk of being held down and forced first thing in the morning.  Because even if Keeler came back to Encke every night, even if Keeler had been the one to put the mattresses together, Keeler still shied away when Encke reached to kiss him in the morning, curling away and sometimes tucking a pillow between them when he thought Encke was asleep and wouldn’t notice.  

Encke just wanted to shake him and demand to know why Keeler bothered with any of it, if he hated sleeping together so much, but Encke was too much of a coward to hear the answer, afraid he already knew.

* * *

But Porthos didn’t wake up next to Keeler every morning, didn’t get to sit there stupid when Keeler handed him a hairbrush and turned his back.

“Can you braid it?” Keeler asked, bed rumpled and beautiful and finally letting himself be touched after everything else they’d done.  “My back still hurts from rewiring, if you know how to do it.”

Encke stared, brush in hand.  “Yeah, uh, just one braid?” he asked before he thought better of it, because of course it would only be one braid.  He’d never been very good at doing the little girls’ cornrows, but he could do braided pigtails just fine, not that Keeler needed pigtails.  Keeler just gave him a smile over one shoulder and leaned back for a kiss.

“You’d look cute with it cut short, or a little mohawk too, baby,” Encke said, brushing his lips across the back of Keeler’s neck as he leaned in to gather up his hair.  Encke dragged the brush through it, careful of the little tangles to make sure he’d be asked to do this again.  If Keeler cut it short, he wouldn’t have to think about it during sex, Encke wouldn’t have to think about being careful of it.  Even if it meant never sitting here again with his fingers twisted in Keeler’s warm hair, selfish either way.

But of course that wasn’t how it worked, and he knew that as soon as Keeler glanced over his shoulder.  “If I cut it off, then he wins.  I’m not going to let him change my whole life,” Keeler said quietly.  He gave Encke another half smile, a sad one this time.  “I thought you liked it long anyway,” Keeler said, and even though Encke had never said it, his heart twisted with how easily Keeler had read him, worried about what else Keeler might have heard him thinking that he’d never said.

* * *

Encke never asked if Porthos was the friend from training, just assumed he was until he saw Keeler across the flight deck one afternoon, being talked up by a fighter Encke didn’t recognize.  Keeler let him stand too close, allowing himself to be backed against the wall as Encke slowly made his way closer, suspicious.  He knew he shouldn’t have been so fucking jealous, but he didn’t like it, didn’t like the thought of another fighter with his hands on Keeler.  Navigators were different, even if he didn’t like Porthos.

He watched them, making his way close enough to hear, watching the way Keeler kept his eyes on the fighters’ face, oblivious to everything else, hating himself for being this jealous, but things were different with fighters.  Bede threw him a smirk from where the asshole worked on his own ship, watching the show.

The fighter put a hand next to Keeler’s head, boxing him in, leaning towards him.  Tall, broad and a strong jaw, a meaner looking version of Porthos, just Keeler’s type.  “It’s been too long, baby.  Did you miss me?”

Keeler turned his face away, looking bored.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart, don’t you got a kiss for me for old times’ sake?”  Encke watched as Keeler took a breath, almost felt it when Keeler brushed a dry, cool kiss across the fighter’s cheek like he did Encke’s every night.  “See you later, baby,” the fighter said, stroking Keeler’s hair, and Encke tried to catch his eye as Keeler swept away.  But Keeler hurried out, ignoring him, ignoring everyone but Puck, who he caught at the door of the hanger and pulled away with him.

Encke ground his jaw as the new fighter turned to Bede, and he realized exactly who the bastard was, but he asked anyway.  He stalked up to them, ignoring Bede’s not-quite-sneered _lieutenant_.

“Take a walk,” Encke said, not bothering to look at Bede as the bastard sauntered off, eyes on the fighter who’d been leaning over Keeler.  “Who the fuck are you?”

“Laius.  Keeler’s first Encke,” Laius said with a smile, reaching his hand out to shake.  “Taught him everything he knows.  You’re welcome, brother.”

Encke barely realized it until the MPs and Cassius pulled him off, blood from Laius’ broken face dripping off Encke’s hands and shocked navigators shouting and huddling back.  Barely listened while Bering ripped him a new asshole for abusing his position, barely cared when Cassius read him off the list of charges the MPs wanted pressed but Bering blocked for fuck knew what reason.  

 _You’d be more fucking use if you didn’t go chasing every skinny piece of ass that needed rescuing_.  _Thought you learned that in basic, but it looks like you’re no more use now than you were then._ Encke didn’t want to be _of use_ , he wanted to fucking kill Laius for ever putting his hands on Keeler.

Someone knew, someone in central knew what Laius was and tried to put a mark on him without putting it in his file, Laius in mythology Oedipus’ father, cursed for kidnapping and raping a prince.  Keeler probably hadn’t been the first or the last, but with no evidence of a pattern because command would never take a report, it was Encke getting a new one ripped for assault and conduct unbecoming an officer and not a fucking other thing he could do about it.

* * *

Keeler stood as Encke closed the door that night, knowing he should be sore but feeling nothing.  “What happened to you?” Keeler demanded.  “Cassius said you were in a fight—“

Encke’s breath came ragged, his heart starting to pound again with Keeler right in front of him again.  “I’m gonna fucking kill Laius, make sure he pisses through a tube for the rest of his fucking life—“

“Leave it,” Keeler said quietly, turning away, shuttering closed.  “I put him on blue squad.”

Encke stopped and stared, Keeler’s voice hard past the quiet softness of it.  That was completely different from arranging a bad fall, might as well have shot Laius in the head as put him on blue squad, and at least when Cassius had arranged the other bad fall, the navigator hadn’t been killed by it too.  “That’s—that’s fucking cold, don’t you give a fuck about his navigator—“

Keeler turned on him, face cold and furious, and Encke took a shaken step back.  “Of _course_ I care, but what else do you want me to do?”  Keeler raked his hands through his hair.  “What do you think it’ll look like if fighters who get accused of rape keep turning up to medical with conveniently bad _accidents_ from training?  Do you want to lose your promotion and spend the rest of your enlistment is prison, and Cassius with you?” Keeler demanded.  _I hear about most things eventually_.  Encke breathed slowly, knowing Keeler was right and hating it.

“They’ll come back if they’re meant to,” Keeler said eventually, sounding sick with it.  Even though they both knew blue squad wouldn’t be coming back, not from this.  Keeler took a deep breath and gave him a level look, gone cold as Fifty that last week of basic, after he’d killed Six.  Encke swallowed hard, wishing Keeler didn’t look so much like Fifty, or Fifty so much like Keeler, both of them beautiful and scared and cold.  Wished even harder that they looked nothing alike when Keeler stumbled into him, hiding his face in Encke’s shoulder and needing to be held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more I'm [stealing a scene from J8 with the hairbrushing.](http://justeight.tumblr.com/post/33818080433/not-sure-if-sorry-or-not-dont-fuck-up-encke)


	34. Porthos

He listened as the lieutenant came up to his station in the lab, just checking his numbers like anyone else, except Porthos’ nerves shivered just a little when Keeler put a hand on his shoulder and leaned down.  “What are you doing tonight?” Keeler asked, trailing fingers just under his ear.

Porthos glanced around for anyone watching them, leaning back in his chair to look up at Keeler.  “You,” Porthos mouthed silently, gratified by Keeler’s blush.  Responsibility and the promotion suited him, but this was like being back in academy but better, neither of them so closeted any more, confident enough to enjoy it, not so scared of being found out.  Keeler was more exciting than fighters anyway, still bashful enough to want Porthos to take the lead, for all that he put on the hard front in briefings.  But Porthos supposed he had to, with the rumors that went around.

Keeler gave him a little secret smile before brushing fingers across his lips and turning away.  Porthos watched him go back to his office, wishing they’d done this sooner, back in academy when they’d had all the time in the world, but things had been different then, no way for either of them to say what they wanted, even if they could both tell the other was looking. Everything had been so much simpler then, but so much more complicated.

* * *

He showed up just on time, not a minute late and not a minute early, because if it wasn’t quite a date, then it wasn’t quite not a date either, and he was too jittery waiting with Phobos to hide it.

“Remember to tell him about me,” Phobos called out the door behind him.  “It’s not fair if you get a promotion out of fucking him and you can’t even tell him about me.”  Like Porthos could have anything on his mind besides the butterflies in his stomach as he walked up to officers’ quarters, like he could remember anything more than his own name by the time Keeler opened the door for him.

“How was your day?” Porthos asked, sidling in as the door closed, catching Keeler by the waist as he turned away.  “You look tired.”  He pulled Keeler back against him, kissing his shoulder where his undershirt left it exposed, breathing in the warm smell of him.

Keeler shrugged, letting Porthos kiss his ear and knead his tense shoulders.  The promotion looked good on him, but he carried too much of it with him at night, wound too tight.  “It’s just a lot sometimes, you know?” Keeler sighed, laying his head back against Porthos’ shoulder and closing his eyes.

“Yeah.  The fuck happened to us?  We’re all grown up and shit now.”

Keeler laughed, twisting away from him finally, pushing Porthos down to the bed with a little smirk.  “Does that mean I should write you up for breaking curfew and fraternizing?”

“Maybe.  Maybe you should just spank me instead,” Porthos said, flipping onto his back so he could look up at Keeler, who just laughed at him and rolled his eyes.  He watched Keeler strip out of his undershirt and toss it away, not bothering to hide the way he was looking at Keeler, all muscle and bone.

He watched Keeler upside down, draped across the bed Keeler shared with his fighter, already hard when Keeler leaned down to kiss him.  Keeler’s hair tickled, worse than Phobos’, trailing out of the braid as Keeler bent to tug Porthos’ shirt off him.

Keeler climbed over him, laughing as Porthos tried to drag him out of his pants, impatient and half tangled in clothes.  Keeler slapped his thigh, rolling off him to kick out of his pants and Porthos went after him, reaching for a condom and lifting Keeler’s ass up off the mattress as soon as he was naked.  Porthos knelt over him, lifting Keeler up by the hips to bring his hard cock closer, mouthing his belly and thighs.  Keeler laughed breathily, dragged out into a shuddery breath when Porthos finally swallowed him, both hands on Keeler’s tight ass holding him up off the mattress.

Responsibility looked good on Keeler, but relaxed and arching his back looked even better, all of Keeler’s hard front gone as he tilted his head back with his eyes closed, dragging one of Porthos’ hands up to suck his fingers.  Keeler still over thought sex too much, slow and jittery when he wanted to go down on Porthos, but that was what made him beautiful, thinking about everything, like when they’d been in school together and Claude had just sat there dumb watching Hector turn over problems in his head, finding something simple and elegant when the rest of them were struggling through complicated algorithms.  Keeler just hadn’t found how simple sex could be yet.

He let Keeler shove him away finally, heart beating fast as he wiped the taste of the condoms off his mouth and flipped on his belly, Keeler tense and shivery as he lay across Porthos’ back to get the lube.

“What do you want?” Keeler asked, kissing his shoulder as Porthos pushed his ass up to meet Keeler’s lubed fingers, cold and sure as Keeler was at work, but his mouth warm and slow.

“Slow,” Porthos breathed.  “Really slow, like when we were in the shower that night.”

Keeler hummed as Porthos got his knees under himself, pushing his face into Keeler’s pillow with his breath catching, Keeler’s fingers sliding into him slow and deliberate.  “I thought you wanted a spanking,” Keeler said quietly, just a little smile in it as he pushed his fingers in and curled them, just a little, making Porthos throb harder with how bad he needed it, everything tight and burning with Keeler’s other hand stroking his back.

“Can we kiss?” Porthos begged, breath coming fast when he glanced back at Keeler and couldn’t quite tell if Keeler was over thinking it or had finally found how simple it was (how simple Porthos was, or wanted to be, at least), and it didn’t really matter when Keeler really smiled and took his fingers away to nudge him onto his back again.

Keeler’s hips were bony when Porthos brought his knees up to his chest, forgetting about kissing when Keeler pushed into him in one smooth motion, catching Porthos’ lip and holding him there still with just the tip of Keeler’s cock in him.  Porthos put a hand on his ass to pull him closer, pulling Keeler into him, like they should have done years ago but they’d both been too scared for.

He held Keeler close, needy as they kissed, Keeler rocking into him slow and confident.  Everything about Keeler was deliberate, considered, careful, and Porthos wished not for the first time that Keeler had been his first time and not Phobos, frantic and panicky, but he pushed the thought away, overthinking things too much himself.

Keeler’s mouth was as cool as the rest of him, cool and slow and making Porthos realize how burning hot he was under Keeler’s slim body, covered as Keeler broke the kiss to suck little cold bites along Porthos’ neck, leaving him racked with hot chills as Keeler rocked into him faster.

Just a little, incremental, faster by tiny measures until Keeler pulled back to look at him with his braid falling over one shoulder and a hand on Porthos’ ass to hold him steady.  Porthos could feel it coming when Keeler gave him that little smile, the one when he’d figured out something beautiful and complicated that no one else could see yet, and Porthos came hard across their bellies, wanting so badly to know what it was, but Keeler had always been miles ahead of him in class and in everything else.

He moaned as Keeler bent back to him, gone boneless and shuddery with Keeler fucking him faster, warm and slick and gorgeous.  He dragged Keeler to kiss just in time to feel him go stiff, Keeler coming into him warm and pulsing thick as Porthos bit his lip, just a little, teasing Keeler’s soft mouth open as Keeler’s long fingers curled against the back of his thigh.

Keeler collapsed against him, breathing hard into his neck and shivering as they both came down from it, sensitive with Keeler’s cock still pulsing hard into him.  Porthos gasped and shuddered when Keeler finally pulled away from him, just enough to rearrange them to cuddle, Keeler’s head on his chest as Porthos drifted, pleasantly warm and gone weak.

“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” Porthos asked, brushing Keeler’s hair away where it tickled his chest.

“Don’t know.  Too scared, I guess,” Keeler said.  He shifted a little against Porthos’ chest, curling tighter.

“Fuck, when were you ever scared of anything?  You always looked like you knew everything, when the rest of us were still busy puking on our boots after simulation.”

Keeler didn’t say anything, just kissed his collarbone, hand curled around Porthos’ hip bone.

“I missed you,” Porthos said after a while, brushing Keeler’s hard shoulder, tracing his fingers along the bony joint.  “I thought about you a lot after we got stationed out, I wished I’d just gone for it.  Things would’ve been so different.”

“Yeah,” Keeler said quietly.  “Yeah, maybe.  Do you want to have lunch tomorrow?  I have to be up early tomorrow, Cook wants another meeting—“

“Yeah, course,” Porthos said, taking the hint as Keeler sat up to kiss him again.  Because if this wasn’t quite not-dating, it wasn’t quite dating, either, only a little more than sex and cuddling.  Porthos didn’t know if he should bring it up or wait for Keeler to hint at it again, the possibility of staying the night, waiting for Keeler’s fighter to come back from training.  Because if Porthos wasn’t usually interested in fighters, with all their swaggering macho bullshit, he did like the way Keeler talked about Encke, and the way Encke had handled it when he found out they were fucking.  And admitting that he was just a little scared of the idea, and of Encke, only made it more exciting even if Encke wasn’t exactly his type.

Keeler pulled on pants as Porthos dressed, talking sort of aimlessly about his schedule the next day, pausing to absently card his fingers through Porthos’ hair when he sat to pull on his boots.  Porthos tipped his face up and pressed his nose to the hollow of Keeler’s bare hip where his pants rode down just a little, tired and content as Keeler combed fingers through his hair.

And if his heart raced just a little when he passed Encke in the hallway later, it was from the nod and the half smile he thought he caught, and he tried to finish blushing by the time he got back to the room.

Phobos sat up too quickly, obviously waiting for the sound of the door all the time he’d been gone, fiddling with his tablet but not looking at it.  Porthos shucked out of his uniform as the door closed.

“Did you tell him about me?” Phobos demanded.  “Did he say anything about me?”

Porthos kicked his boots away, torn between climbing up the nest of mattresses on the floor to shut Phobos up himself, or dragging him into the shower.  Both seemed like more work than he wanted, to just curl up with someone warm and skinny and bony draped over him, but Phobos had always been more work.

“What did he think of my flying yesterday?” Phobos demanded again, everything about promotions, about getting ahead, about work, never about just them.

Porthos sighed, rolling his shoulders.  Thought about just taking a shower alone, but Phobos would be just waiting for him when he got out again.  “Phobos, just . . . shut up.”

“You didn’t tell him about me,” Phobos said, going sullen.  “You’re just like Deimos, so selfish, you don’t care.”

Porthos climbed up the bed towards him then, doing his best to be contrite as he kissed Phobos’ cold knees and took his tablet away from him.  Deimos did care, just not about Phobos, sleeping with that fraud Abel and his fighter every night, leaving Phobos to share the room with whoever he wanted.  Which suited Porthos fine, because he did care, even when Phobos made it difficult.  He’d always been more work than Keeler, but he’d always be worth it, for the needy, anxious way he tugged Porthos up to kiss, and his clumsy demands for affection.

Phobos finally shut up when Porthos tugged his clothes away and lay Phobos on his back, kissing his thighs.  Phobos didn’t last long, never did, and Porthos never had the heart to tease him and make him wait longer with how bad he needed it.  He just took his time, Phobos’ heels resting on his back as Porthos held his cock in one hand and just sucked the tip, rolling his tongue over it slowly, if it was the only affection Phobos would take, too scared for anything else.


	35. Encke

After that, Encke put a security track on Laius and Porthos both, getting an alert on his tablet any time either one so much as opened a door.  Keeler would know and never stand for it if Encke just put a track on _Keeler_ , but that didn’t stop Encke from thinking about it, paranoid and on edge with how close Laius had gotten to him, boxing Keeler in, in front of everybody, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of Keeler being cornered into something else.  

And if he knew now exactly what Laius was and couldn’t do a fucking thing about it, he had no fucking clue about Porthos, twisting himself in knots worse now that he knew who else was fucking Keeler, worrying about how and whether Keeler wanted it, or whether Keeler did want Porthos and and just kept fucking Encke because—

He didn’t want to think about why.

He tracked down Porthos after mess a few days later, determined to not be such a fucking coward about it and finally face it, even if he couldn’t face Keeler about it just yet.  Porthos stood almost nose to nose with him, too tall for a navigator, too broad, built like a fighter and Encke bullied him like one, backing him against a wall after cutting him away from the rest of the navigators, only recognizing him in that sea of blank repetitive blondness for the stupid fucking mohawk.

“How long you been fucking him?” Encke demanded.  “Since academy?”

Porthos looked him up and down, unimpressed, unintimidated, and Encke scowled.  Navigators were supposed to be easy, easy to bully, easy to get into bed, easier to order around, and the more of them Encke had to deal with the more he found that was all a fucking lie, they were none of them easy about anything, complicated and baffling.

“Keeler?” Porthos asked finally, after Encke just stood there staring him down in silence.  “What’s it to you?”

“Because I fucking asked, that’s why,” Encke said slowly, resisting the urge to shake the pompous shit against the wall with navigators filtering past them, already giving them looks.

They stared each other down, Encke not about to give anything.  “Are you sleeping together?” Porthos asked, less acid this time, and Encke wasn’t sure how to take that.

“The fuck do you think?”

Porthos just shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest, and if he’d been a fighter, Encke would have snapped at him to stand to attention and show some fucking respect, but he wasn’t, so Encke couldn’t.  “Keeler’s a top, I thought he was fucking me because you weren’t interested.”

Encke barely kept himself from startling back at that.  “You—you’re— _Keeler’s_ fucking _you_?”  Porthos finally flushed, shrugging.  “Doesn’t it hurt?” he asked before he thought better of it.

Porthos swallowed a laugh, embarrassed and shocked.  “Nah, it’s—haven’t you fucked anybody?  It doesn’t hurt, just—“ Porthos cut himself off, giving Encke a look when he just kept staring.  “Wait, are you—do you want Keeler to fuck you?” he asked, and it was Encke’s turn to flush.

“Not so fucking loud,” Encke hissed, dragging Porthos away, down a quieter side corridor.  “What do you—how—why doesn’t it hurt?” he fumbled out finally, glancing behind them to see if anyone had overheard.  Encke should have shaken this out of someone else, Cassius or Puck, but Cassius he was fairly sure only fucked women and Puck would have been too chipper about it, probably explaining it with a banana.

“I don’t know, maybe it hurts the first couple times, but you just got to—“ Porthos glanced around, looking for anyone to overhear.  “Look, just, if it hurts, you didn’t do enough prep beforehand.  You gotta relax, maybe have a drink first and take it slow, do it by yourself a couple times before you try it with Keeler.”

Encke gave him a doubtful look.  Keeler didn’t seem to mind it anymore, if they went slow, and none of his other fucks had ever said anything about it.  But Fifty had always gotten off on pain and Encke wasn’t sure what to trust anymore, worried Keeler thought he was just like all his other Enckes, going along with it because he was afraid to say no, paper dry kisses across the cheek because he had to.  “And it doesn’t hurt.”

“No, man, it—it’s really good.  Like, _really_ good, just take it slow if you want to do it.  I, um—“ Porthos cleared his throat, glancing around again, maybe for witnesses in case Encke decided to murder him, which he was pretty close to.  “I, um, showed Keeler a couple things, to uh, you know, make it go better, if you ask him about it.”  Encke frowned, torn between wanting to demand what _things_ meant, and not wanting to know at all what Keeler and Porthos had done together.

“Get the fuck back to work,” Encke said finally, scowling.  “Keeler’s probably expecting you at the lab by now.”

Porthos hesitated for just a second, putting a hand on Encke’s arm as he started to turn away.  Held out his hand and just waited until Encke shook, deciding Porthos wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

Keeler’s back stiffened when Encke tried asking about it that night, unsure how to bring it up.  Probably could have started out with something better than _Talked to Porthos_ , but there wasn’t much better way to do it.

_The other guy you’re fucking says we’re doing it wrong_.

Maybe that would have been better.

“Why were you checking up on me?” Keeler asked quietly, his voice when he hadn’t decided yet whether to be angry.

Encke propped himself up on one elbow, wanting to put a hand on Keeler’s thigh where he sat just within reach, but knowing how well that would go over.  “I was worried about you, after—“

“I’m not your problem, Encke.  Don’t do it again.  If this is going to work, you have to trust me.”

“ _I_ have to trust _you_?  How about _you_ —“

“How about I _what_ , _Encke_?” Keeler asked quietly, dead cold.  “ _Trust_ you?”

Encke sat there gape mouthed, trying to find a way to answer that, a reason Keeler had to trust him.  Of course they had to trust each other, if they worked together, if they flew together, but trust was different than what Keeler was demanding, no questions about where he went or who with, no demands—

“I—“ Encke started, and Keeler looked at him hard, thinking over the transfer, throwing him back to be torn apart by Bede, and Laius, and Fifty and Thirty.  “I just asked Porthos how—what you wanted.”

“You did _what_?” Keeler asked, his frown softening.  Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Encke flushed, feeling his ears go hot.  “I—um.  It—uh—it hurt the last time we—you know—“

“Fucked?” Keeler offered, and Encke blushed harder knowing that Keeler was doing his best not to just laugh in Encke’s face.

“So I asked what I was doing wrong.  I just—I’ve never not been good at something,” Encke said.  Not fucking, not his job, not anything, until Keeler came along and made him feel like he’d never been good at anything at all and left him unsure how to do any better because he’d never had to try before.  “Thought you liked things better with him.  Thought it would make things better with us.”

“And?” Keeler asked, actually laughing, trying to push it down.

“He said to ask you,” Encke mumbled, wishing he’d just started with that and pouting under Keeler’s laugh.

Keeler pushed him over to lie on his back then, crawling closer and peering down at him.  “Don’t you have friends you could ask about that, instead of Porthos?” Keeler asked, and he didn’t sound quite so angry as he could have, more pitying.  And Encke didn’t know how to explain that of course he didn’t, because fighters didn’t get fucked, and when they did it was supposed to hurt, and they weren’t supposed to care if anyone they fucked liked it or not anyway.

So Encke just shook his head against the mattress, surprised when Keeler leaned down to kiss him slow.  Figured that was about as much forgiveness he was going to get or deserve for being a jealous asshole anyway, going hard as Keeler’s fingers wandered down his chest and belly.

“I’m still not happy about it,” Keeler said quietly, pressing a kiss below Encke’s ear.  “Don’t do it again.”

He nodded, not sure enough to trust his voice with Keeler tugging his shirt off him and shoving him back against the mattress again.  Keeler was so fucking gorgeous, stronger than he looked, and Encke watched him undress slowly, all that pale skin unveiled until Keeler straddled him naked, hard and beautiful as he leaned down for another kiss.

Encke had still never gotten to peel Keeler out of his flight suit, even if he thought about it some days in the shower, unzipping that hard outer shell and pushing his hands inside, pulling the real Keeler out and seeing all of him, maybe putting purple bites on that light skin somewhere no one else would ever see them and finally make Keeler _his_.  But of course the best he could hope for was letting Keeler nip soft bites to his neck and ear, lying there with his hands on Keeler’s bony ass and Keeler’s cold toes tucked under Encke’s legs.

“So do you want to—you know?” Encke asked, trying not to be a coward about it.

Keeler just pulled back and gave him a long, thoughtful look, half hidden by the hair coming loose from his braid.  “Do you?”

He managed to nod, liking this bolder Keeler, this Keeler who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to push back a little, and if he was being honest, the sex had been best, Encke had come hardest when Keeler took the lead and Encke was just sort of there, shocked by how beautiful and strong Keeler was.

Keeler kissed him and eased Encke’s boxers off him finally, kissing his hip and thighs delicately before nudging him over and getting the lube.

Encke lay on his belly, Keeler draped naked across him and warm, kissing lazily.  It wasn’t so bad without the pressure and nervousness of actually fucking, he could halfway see what someone would like about it with Keeler’s fingers sliding slowly and his hard cock pressed to the mattress. It didn’t hurt, at least, it just wasn’t very interesting, not like fucking someone, not like being in control and watching Keeler or Fifty get off on being fucked.

Even if it made him harder to open his eyes a little and watch Keeler kiss his shoulder, curled against him and cock pressed warm to the side of Encke’s thigh.  Even if he was fascinated with listening to Keeler hum absently, eyes closed and propped up to kiss Encke’s back, the most sound he’d ever made in bed except to ask for something.  Even if—

“ _Fuck_ ,” Encke hissed, the tip of his cock throbbing white hot as Keeler brushed something and then startled back with a sharp little intake of breath.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Keeler breathed, pushing himself away as fast as he could, drawing his knees up between them and trying to get away.

“Baby—Keeler, come back, it’s okay,” Encke said, reaching out slow for him, staying on his belly to not startle Keeler any worse.  “That wasn’t bad, it was just really fucking good, come back.”

“I didn’t hurt you?” Keeler asked, and under that, _you’re not going to hurt me?_  

“No, baby, come back and do it again,” Encke said, wondering if Keeler would stop mixing him up with his other Enckes, wondering if he’d ever done anything to give Keeler a reason to.

Keeler blushed and eased himself back over, smiling shyly as Encke rolled onto his back and swung an arm around him to pull them together.  “I don’t remember what I did,” Keeler whispered against his neck as they rearranged themselves with one of Encke’s knees pulled up and Keeler pressed against him.

“Then we’ll just have to keep practicing,” Encke said, catching Keeler’s mouth for a kiss and gratified by his little laugh as Keeler curled fingers back into him.  It was better then, so much fucking better, with Keeler’s fingers moving slowly in him and Encke stroking himself lazily, Keeler’s warm skinny body pressed against him and hair draped down his face.  His toes curled against the mattress, breath coming ragged as Keeler held his fingers in place and kneaded, kissing him through it.

“Do you want a condom?” Keeler asked, propping himself up next to Encke.

He nodded, and felt like an asshole as soon as Keeler opened it and started rolling it on his own cock, because he’d been mostly expecting Keeler to blow him.  But it couldn’t be so bad as last time, and Encke pushed down his nerves as Keeler nudged him to roll over to his side.  Wouldn’t have been so bad at all if he could have kept staring at Keeler’s excited little smile, biting his lower lip and pink-cheeked, but it wasn’t so bad when Keeler snuggled against his back, mouth warm on the back of his neck and reaching an arm around Encke’s waist to pull him closer.

Keeler must have felt the tension in him from nerves, curling against him tighter and stroking his thighs and back, kissing his shoulder slowly and tracing little circles along the backs of his knees.  He stretched for another condom, not sure if he needed it, but wanting Keeler’s hand on his cock if it seemed like this time was going to be better than the last.

He took deep breaths when Keeler finally started to push into him, slow and just a bit of pain, but not as much and so slow, distracted from it anyway with Keeler’s mouth warm on his shoulder and warm hand on his cock, stroking lazily.

It was slow, so slow, Encke relaxing back into Keeler’s hands and half asleep with his warmth if not for how hard Keeler kept him, teasing and alternating between fast strokes to make him go rigid and slow to make him demand more, twisting back against Keeler to kiss him hard.

Keeler was tentative, shy and too gentle until Encke reached back to grab his ass and urge him a little faster, Encke arching backwards into him with how bad he needed it, breath coming ragged.  They found a rhythm between them, short and sharp and fast.

“Fuck,” Encke hissed again, back going rigid with how close he was.  

“Is it okay, I’m not hurting you—?” Keeler asked, pulling back a little but Encke twisted to kiss him, dragging Keeler back down to him.  Tried not to be embarrassed when Keeler laughed a little, biting his lip and tightening his hand on Encke’s cock.  It was a delighted sound, surprised and pleased in a way Encke had never gotten from him before and would have given anything to know how to get him to make it again.

“Fuck no, just—a little faster, baby, and shallow like that— _fuck_ —“

Keeler hummed against his shoulder, fingers digging sharp into the back of his thigh as Encke bit his knuckles, trying not to make too much noise and scare Keeler off again.  He craned his neck back, opening himself for Keeler’s warm mouth on his neck and ear, so fucking close with Keeler’s breathy, surprised moan as he came, and then Encke cursed and went rigid, coming hard, harder than he could ever remember feeling every pulse of Keeler’s cock in him.

Keeler breathed heavily against his back, biting back another little moan when he finally pulled out, leaving Encke there pleasantly sore and shaky, his legs gone weak as Keeler took care of the condoms and came padding back.  Encke pulled him down across his chest, too tired to fight when Keeler laughed and rolled away, tugging Encke to wrap around him, and in the morning Keeler was still there but twisted toward him, nose pressed to Encke’s chest.


	36. Abel

“Abel, really, I’m fine,” Keeler protested as they got out of the lift, but he stumbled over the threshold and would have fallen if his arm wasn’t already over Abel’s shoulders.

“I know,” Abel said, trying not to embarrass him. “I’ll just make sure you get a drink of water and then we can go back to the lab.” Keeler had always looked tired, but he’d been in the middle of explaining something to Red group when he collapsed that afternoon. He’d refused to go to medical, but let himself be talked into taking a break when a group of them insisted. Abel had tried to get out of being the one to take him back, didn’t want to put himself in a position to make his infatuation worse, but he’d been the one to catch Keeler when he fell, so he couldn’t get out of it.

Keeler didn’t say anything, just nodded weakly, his cheeks flushed when Abel glanced at him. He tried to keep his mind off the way Keeler smelled so close, tried not to think about how different it was from Cain’s smell. Keeler smelled like something Abel remembered from home, but couldn’t quite name what it was. Something familiar and safe, though, something not like the jagged foreignness of all the fighters. 

The room Keeler shared with his fighter was bigger than the room Abel shared with Cain, but not by much. Just enough room for narrow twin beds instead of bunks, but the two had been pushed together to make one bed. Abel blushed and tried not to think about what that meant as he eased Keeler down onto the mattress. 

The room didn’t smell like Keeler, just overwhelmingly like his fighter, like Abel’s room must have smelled like Cain. He’d seen Encke and Keeler together sometimes, Cain giving the other fighter a wary look and a wide berth, even though Encke didn’t seem any worse than any of the other fighters. Maybe a little better, since Keeler liked him, but Abel didn’t want to think about them together.

“You really didn’t have to do this, I’ll be fine,” Keeler said, lying back on the pillow Abel pushed behind him. He smiled up weakly, his hair coming loose from its binding and trailing over his face.

“Are you sure I can’t call medical? Or at least get you something?” Abel asked, chewing his lip as he brushed hair out of Keeler’s face. He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. 

Improper fraternization. Abel didn’t think Keeler would put him under report; he was only trying to help. He used to be so good at keeping his thoughts under control until Cain happened. Now he was lucky to get through a meeting without wondering how different Keeler would be in bed, wondering what it would be like to sleep with someone who didn’t push him into it.

Keeler sat up, brushing his hand away, and Abel froze guiltily. Keeler just smiled.

He put a hand on Abel’s cheek.

“You’re really too sweet, Abel,” Keeler murmured, pulling Abel to him and teasing at his mouth with warm lips. Keeler closed his eyes, leaning into it, but Abel sat there with his eyes open and didn’t push away, too shocked that this was finally happening. 

Keeler’s mouth was too hot, like his skin, almost burning to touch but Abel didn’t care. His heart beat too fast when he realized Keeler was waiting for him to push back instead of just taking control like Cain did; Abel dabbed tentatively at Keeler’s warm tongue and shivered when he sighed approvingly.

He’d just pulled back for a breath when the door opened.

“Keeler, central said you—“

Abel stood up as fast as he could, his cheek flushing hot where Keeler’s hand had been as he turned to face Keeler’s fighter. Encke looked him up and down, weighing Abel with a closed face. He glanced at Keeler, who leaned back and smiled sleepily. 

“Wait outside,” Encke said to Abel, not looking at him as he brushed Abel out of the way, going to sit on the bed next to Keeler.

“Isn’t he just the sweetest?” Keeler asked as Abel hurried for the door.

“Yes. Lie down.”

The door finally closed, Abel took a deep breath in the hallway. He shifted uncomfortably, wondering if it would be worse to stay or just leave. Encke didn’t look angry, but Cain would have been and Abel didn’t have anything else to go by. He wasn’t Abel’s superior officer, but Abel didn’t want Keeler to be in trouble with his fighter either, not if they had to sleep together.

Encke came out finally, the same unreadable look on his face. Abel looked up at him, more intimidated now that he had to realize how tall Encke was, so much taller than Cain, and this quiet appraisal was worse than Cain’s snarling anger. Encke just looked right through him at everything he’d ever done wrong and every thought he’d ever had about Keeler.

Abel fidgeted under Encke’s look. “Is Keeler alright?” he asked, just to break the silence. 

Encke didn’t answer at first, just looked back at the closed door, thinking something over. “Thank you for helping him back,” he said finally, his voice level, and he sounded like he meant it even if his face didn’t give anything away. “What’s your name, navigator?”

“Um.” Abel swallowed and tried to stand up straight. “Abel, sir?” 

Encke’s eyes narrowed. “Cain’s navigator.” That didn’t sound like a question, but Abel nodded, wondering how much he’d seen, wondering how much of it would get back to Cain. Encke looked him up and down again, frowning. “I don’t want to see you near Keeler again.”

“Um. Yes sir.” Abel swallowed hard and didn’t say anything as Encke turned away. He caught a glimpse of Keeler through the door as it opened, curled up on his side with his eyes closed. 

Then Abel came to his senses and rushed back to the lab, not sure how he’d be able to avoid Keeler even if he wanted to, but hoping he wouldn’t have to run into Encke again. Even if the kiss had been worth it this time.


	37. Abel

They shouldn’t have been working alone together so late anyway, but the analytics had to get done.  Even if Abel knew he should know better, even if he knew Cain would be angry.  And it wasn’t his fault if Keeler sat so close in the empty lab, pulling his chair right next to Abel’s to lean over and see the screen.  So close Abel could smell Encke on him and see Keeler’s faint freckles.  He tried to concentrate on his numbers instead.  

Keeler’s knee brushed his, and Abel stared down at it, sucking his lip to try to keep himself from getting embarrassingly hard from something so innocuous.  Until Keeler put a hand on his thigh too, saying something about the new engines and velocity changes, his fingers brushing the inside of Abel’s knee.  

Abel swallowed hard, dragging himself back to concentrate on parabolic vectors instead of Keeler’s warm fingers tracing little circles.  He licked his lips to say something about engine capacities when Keeler leaned into him, his lips just brushing Abel’s burning ear.

“Abel, you’re blushing,” Keeler murmured.  “Are flight vectors really that scandalous?” he asked, squeezing Abel’s knee, and Abel turned to kiss him.  It was better than last time, Abel burning hot and Keeler’s mouth cool against his.  Keeler let him push clumsily, parting his lips as Abel slid his tongue over Keeler’s, wondering if this shaky feeling of being inside someone completely was how Cain or Deimos felt when they kissed, both of them so pushy and overwhelming.

Keeler leaned away from him finally, leaving Abel breathless and still blushing hot.  He watched as Keeler leaned over him to turn the screens off.  “Come on,” Keeler said, standing and taking his hand.  “We got enough done tonight, we can finish it in the morning.”  

And Abel let himself be led to the elevator, thinking too much with his cock and not enough with his head until Keeler pushed him against the wall of the lift and pressed his warm lips to Abel’s ear again.  Abel sucked his lip, trying to keep himself from moaning and sure Keeler could feel how hard he was now.  It was a terrible idea, but it was going exactly like he’d hoped it would, Keeler pulling away from him to smile and stroke Abel’s face before leaning in for another kiss.

They made it all the way to Keeler’s room before Abel thought about how dangerous this was, night shift and Cain and Deimos wondering where he was, Encke able to just walk in any time.  But then Keeler pushed him down on the bed and straddled him, and anything Abel had to say lost in the feeling of Keeler’s hair trailing over the side of his face as they kissed again.  Abel put a hand up to brush it away, but ended up pushing his hand into Keeler’s hair instead, pulling him closer and desperate.

He had a hand on Keeler’s ass before he realized it, and Abel finally pulled back to take a breath and think.  “Keeler, I don’t think this is such a good idea—“ Abel started.

“Why not?” Keeler murmured against his neck, flicking his tongue over Abel’s ear.  “Don’t you want to?”

“I do, but what if someone finds out?”

Keeler pulled back from him then and laughed, bright and delighted.  “Who would care, Abel?  Cook doesn’t, why would you even care if anyone else knew?”

“Doesn’t your fighter care?”

Keeler gave him a look, confused but still smiling.  “Encke?  Of course he doesn’t, why would he?  Does yours?”

Abel swallowed.  Cain did care, but he wasn’t here and Keeler was.  Cain was distant in more ways than one, pushing Abel away and Deimos wouldn't say why, something hanging between the three of them that no one would talk about, Cain getting rougher in and out of bed.

So Abel shook his head.  He’d deal with Cain later, when he didn’t have Keeler straddling him and so warm.  Keeler smiled and leaned down to press warm lips to Abel’s neck, sliding a hand under his jacket collar and starting to undo it.

It was a terrible idea, Encke had told him to stay away, but Abel couldn’t really say no to Keeler, not when they’d have to work together every day.  And if they only did it the once maybe he could stop thinking about Keeler when he was with Cain.

He let Keeler undress him, slow enough to make him crazy, and it made him desperate to find out if Keeler would fuck him just as slow.  Keeler bit Abel’s ear as he finally pushed his jacket off, but not as hard as Cain, and Keeler leaned back to smile at Abel like he’d just told a joke.  Then with Keeler’s shirt off him Abel could feel all his ribs, blushing hotter with how burning Keeler’s skin felt, like when he’d walked Keeler back.  He put his hands back on Keeler’s ass, just to hold him there, but Keeler brushed his hands away and stood up, undressing with another little smile and Abel squirmed out of the rest of his uniform.

He tried to scoot back on the bed to make room for Keeler to push him over and fuck him, but Keeler stopped him with a warm hand and a kiss to the cheek.  And then Keeler turned and straddled Abel again, sitting backwards on his lap so that Abel’s cock was pressed hard up against his ass, Keeler’s back pressed to his chest.

“Keeler, I’ve, um.”  Abel swallowed.  “I’ve never done this before,” he managed, blushing as hot as Keeler felt, his hands on Keeler’s waist and not sure what else to do.

Keeler turned to look back on him, twisting to put a hand on his face.  “Oh Abel, you’re just the sweetest, I didn’t realize you were a virgin,” Keeler said, stroking his cheek with a smile.  “Are you sure you want me to be your first?  I don’t want to push you if you’re not sure.”

Abel blushed even hotter.  “I’m not—I just, with Cain it’s always been, you know, the other way,” he stuttered, looking down at Keeler’s bare thighs on his, but that only made it worse.

Keeler laughed, not sharp, just surprised.  “How selfish.  You know what to do, then, don’t you?  Just take your time, it’s the same,” Keeler said, leaning back to kiss Abel again, draping himself backwards to rest his head on Abel’s shoulder and stroke his hair.  Abel ran a hand down his side, still shocked at how hot Keeler’s skin was, how thin he was.

Keeler spread his legs wide, guiding Abel’s hand down to his cock, and they both stroked it before Keeler’s hands wandered back up to Abel’s hair.  Abel stroked him slowly, getting bolder with Keeler’s mouth pressed hot against his neck and sucking his ear.  He could have kept going like that, just touching with Keeler on him, heavy and warm but so different from Cain, Abel deciding how fast they went instead of letting Cain just drive him.  

But then Keeler leaned away from him, reaching down to get lube and Abel hesitated again as Keeler handed it to him.  He’d done it to himself, but the thought of pressing his fingers into Keeler made this seem more real.  But if this was going to happen, he had to do it, so he lubed his fingers, rubbing them together to warm it up, and finally brought his hand down between them as Keeler scooted forward to make room.

Keeler was warm, relaxed like he’d done this before a thousand times, leaning away so Abel could see all of him and wonder about all the other times Keeler had done this and with who.  Abel could see him close his eyes and part his mouth, rolling his hips back into Abel’s hand, and he forgot about all the other times Keeler must have done this because now it was him and all he wanted to think about was the faces Keeler would make when Abel was finally inside him.

“That’s enough,” Keeler breathed finally, arching his back.  Abel stopped and pulled his fingers out, afraid he’d hurt Keeler, but Keeler tipped his head back to be kissed again.  Keeler’s mouth was hot now, and he lifted himself up to rearrange them as Abel held his cock steady and tried not to whimper as Keeler sank down on him, one long, slow, smooth motion, better than he’d ever thought it would be.

Keeler held still there, letting Abel breath for a second and try not to come too embarrassingly quickly and ruin it.  Better than if his first time had been with Cain and Deimos, who probably would have done it too fast and then laughed when he couldn’t last long.  Keeler’s hands were warm where he reached back to stroke Abel’s hair, rolling his hips just a little as Abel laid shaky hands on his thighs.  Keeler was unbearably tight, unbearably warm, all the breath squeezed out of Abel just holding still there, but then Keeler was moving and all Abel wanted was for him to never stop.

Abel managed to think enough to bring his hand back to Keeler’s cock, one arm wrapped around Keeler’s chest and his face pressed to Keeler’s back.  He let Keeler control the pace, slow at first with Keeler making breathy moans that Abel didn’t trust himself enough to match.  

And then the door opened, all of Abel’s nightmares happening at once.  Encke stood there with an unreadable look on his face and Abel’s heart stopped, Keeler still on him and not moving to let him up and run for his life.  

Keeler smiled and Abel wondered if he’d planned it this way.

Encke took a step towards them, Abel’s heart kicking in his chest as he tried to push Keeler off, but Keeler wouldn’t move, putting his hands in Abel’s hair and dragging for a kiss as Encke got closer.  Abel’s heart started again, hammering as he tried to pull away from Keeler.

But there were no hands on him but Keeler’s, and Encke was kneeling suddenly, right in front of Keeler, and Abel’s heart beat even harder as he realized what was happening.  Keeler moaned into his mouth and Abel sank into him, Encke starting to swallow Keeler.

Abel held Keeler’s waist and squeezed his eyes shut, letting Keeler rock faster as Encke stroked and sucked him, needing Keeler to come so Abel could finally run out of there.

Keeler shuddered and moaned, rocking against him, and Abel looked down by mistake.  He made eye contact with Encke, looking up at him from where he had his mouth on Keeler’s cock, hand on Keeler’s thigh.  Abel froze, more certain he’d be dead after this than anything else he’d ever been sure of in his life, and buried his face in Keeler’s shoulder.  At least if Encke killed him for this, Cain wouldn’t be able to.  

Abel breathed into Keeler’s neck, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to concentrate if this was going to be the last fuck of his life.

Keeler rocked between them and Abel tried to hold still as Keeler fucked him, sure Encke would be even more angry if he choked because Abel had fucked Keeler too hard.  He tried not to think about that, concentrating on Keeler’s throaty moans and the way he tightened every time he shuddered.  

Abel came first, moaning into Keeler’s shoulder, everything suddenly hot and slick as he came and Keeler kept moving.  Keeler arched his back, pushing himself up into Encke and pulling Abel almost all the way out of him, but then his weight slammed down again, making Abel shudder with the intensity of it.  He did it again, and finally Encke put a heavy hand on his thigh and held Keeler down against Abel, making him shudder and tighten between them as Keeler came too.  Abel didn’t watch, his mind too blank with how unbearably long it lasted.

Encke finally stood up then, not saying a word as he wiped his mouth and turned away to get a drink of water.  Keeler finally let Abel push him away then, draping himself bonelessly across the bed as Abel stood and gathered up his clothes as fast as he could.

He’d at least gotten pants and his shirt on when Encke came back, silent and watching him.

“Abel, what’s your hurry, you don’t have to rush off,” Keeler said, stroking his thigh as Abel tried to pull on clothes.  Encke stood by the door, every reason Abel had to hurry looming there, frowning at him.  

Abel tried to pull out of Keeler’s hands without pushing him away, rushing past Encke before he had his jacket on, hoping Encke would stay to sort it out between the two of them.  But Encke followed him out, a hand on Abel’s shoulder to push him through the door, closing it after them.

He turned to face Encke so that he could at least try to explain it.  “I won’t ever go near him again, sir, I swear—"

“Shut up,” Encke snapped, and Abel did.  

Encke sighed.  “Look.  As soon as Cain gets tired of you and you get another fighter, I don’t care if Keeler still wants you.  I don’t give a damn who else he fucks, that’s his business.  But so long as you’re with that crazy little gypsy, you stay the fuck away from Keeler.  You understand me, navigator?”

“Yes.  Yes sir.  I understand—“

“Just shut up and get out of here.”  Abel hurried off, trying not to run, and when he glanced back at the corner Encke was still standing there frowning after him.  


	38. Encke

As if Keeler could have done any better if he tried, Abel.

Because tall and broad and dumb wasn’t Keeler’s type, quiet and serious was, and if Encke had any relief that Keeler would never fuck Thirty’s navigator or Puck because of it, having to keep Keeler from getting killed by Fifty or chase the navigator off without Keeler knowing more than made up for it.  Didn’t matter if Fifty was fucking the navigator or not, although Encke suspected not, not with Fifty still getting fucked by Thirty and whatever creepy possessiveness was between them, it only mattered that Encke didn’t want Fifty to have anything to do with Keeler, so Abel had to go.

Not that Encke wouldn’t have fucked the sweet little blond himself if he wasn’t already fucking Keeler, or Fifty, not that he didn’t think about it long and hard when he walked in on them together.  Couldn’t help thinking about it with Keeler sighing into his neck when Encke fucked him after, wondering what it would be like to fuck both of them at once, or just watch them together.  Skinny and a sweet mix of shy and bold, Abel would have been just Encke’s type before he was promoted to Keeler and all his complicated mix of strength and fragility.

If it weren’t for Abel being Fifty’s navigator, he’d have thought about it even harder, but that was just an even bigger mess waiting to happen, and Encke decided to put a stop to it when Abel ran into him headlong in the corridor outside his own fucking quarters late one evening, papers and a tablet going flying across the empty corridor.

Abel blushed furiously, obviously torn between kneeling to get his things, standing to attention and just flat running.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just walked back with Keeler, I wasn’t—I didn’t—it was only the one time, I swear, sir—“

“Calm the fuck down, son, I told you I don’t give a damn who Keeler fucks,” Encke said, even if that wasn’t quite true, but the pretty little navigator was shaking and so flustered he’d probably have a heart attack from fear if Encke raised his voice.  He crouched and helped Abel gather his things, papers and his unbroken tablet and a book.

Encke picked it up, turning it over in his hand as Abel reached for it.  _Anna Karenina_ , the tattered copy Fifty had held on to through basic, reading after lights out in the dim light through the windows, on nights when it had been clear enough for a moon.  The little shit had said he never read it, lying about everything even when he had no reason to, but he sat up with it for nights on end until Encke had taken it from him to make Fifty get some fucking sleep.  And then read it himself because it got the better of him wondering what could have been so good to distract Fifty from quietly crying himself to sleep all those nights.

“You reading that?” Encke asked, handing it back, and the little blond flushed.  “It’s good.  Sad, but good.”

Abel tucked it back with the rest of his things, glancing down and up through his lashes and messy hair, skinny and beautiful and not broken yet, though fuck knew how long that would last the longer he was left with Fifty.  “Yessir, my, um, my fighter lent it to me,” he said, and Encke frowned.

“You close?”

“I—um.  No, not as much—not anymore.  Not really.  Have you read it?” Abel asked, changing the subject, avoiding the issue of Fifty hanging between them.  If not for Fifty, Encke thought he might really not have a problem with Keeler and Abel fucking, starting to see the appeal of Keeler’s porn with the two pretty blondes, if they’d been skinny boys instead of women.  Abel had a pretty blush, sweet mouth and a little boldness, like Keeler might have been before Laius broke him.

“A long time ago,” Encke said.  “Mostly romances now.”

Abel looked up at him, breath shallow and licking his lips just a little, like Keeler did when he was thinking about kissing, and Encke stupidly brushed a lock of pale hair out of his face.  And fuck him for an idiot if he didn’t think about putting his hand behind Abel’s head and kissing him, twisting his fingers in Abel’s hair and dragging him back to the room to fuck with Keeler, stupid and selfish with wanting them both at once, if they were already fucking anyway.

He almost did it, standing closer than was professional, or good sense, Abel’s breath shallow as he tipped his head up.  Encke took a deep breath, overwhelmed with the innocent smell of him, like Keeler and Fifty and clean laundry.  Skinny and quiet and strong, without all Keeler or Fifty’s baggage.  “You better get back to quarters before lights out, Reliant,” he said finally, half regretting it and half wishing he’d had the sense to say it sooner.  “Hate to write you up for breaking curfew.”

Abel flushed to the tips of his ears and took a step back, embarrassed and maybe just a little hard even after fucking Keeler, and Encke had to keep himself from smiling at the poor pretty little thing’s embarrassment.  Would have been easier to solve the curfew problem by fucking him all night with Keeler, but it would have made so many more problems Encke didn’t even want to think about. 

He turned and left Abel there blushing in the hallway, and knew as soon as he heard footsteps who it was.  Encke glanced back once but kept walking, not his problem.

“The fuck are you doing?” Fifty hissed, hand tight around his navigator’s arm.  “This where you been all night, whoring around after officers?”

“No, I—“

“Shut the fuck up, Abel, I don’t _fucking_ want to hear it,” Fifty snarled, dragging him.

“Cain, you’re hurting—“

Encke stopped at the corner, turning to glare back at Fifty and his pretty navigator.  Not the navigator’s fault he was looking elsewhere, especially if that was what he went back to every night.  “Reliant, you can keep it up if you want more PT and some assault charges,” Encke barked, watching as Fifty and Abel both startled.  “You hear me, Cain?”

Abel glanced between them, grateful and worried as Fifty’s hand tightened on his navigator’s arm.

“I _said_ , do you fucking understand me, Reliant?” Encke demanded, Fifty staring at him with his jaw tight.

“Yes _sir_ ,” Fifty finally said, glaring at his navigator as Encke turned to go.  “Stay the _fuck_ away from him, Abel—“ he heard Fifty hiss again as he left, but Fifty’s navigator wasn’t his problem, so long as Fifty stayed away from Keeler, and Encke was going to make sure of it.

* * *

He said it as soon as he walked in the door, Keeler dressed but rebraiding his hair, tapping on his computer absently.  “You can’t keep seeing him,” Encke said, determined to put an end to it for once and for all.

Keeler frowned at him over his shoulder, going on with braiding his hair.  “Abel?  Why not?”

“His fighter is fucking crazy, fuck only knows—“

“The one you’re seeing,” Keeler cut in quietly, and Encke should have seen that one coming miles away, but he jumped right into it with both feet.

“No.  Yes.”  Encke scowled, trying to figure out why it was different, because of course it was different.  “Fuck, I’m not _seeing_ him, it’s complicated—“

“You fucking someone else and me locked away in a tower seeing no one doesn’t sound very complicated, Encke.  It sounds very simple,” Keeler said, and Encke would never get used to it when his voice went hard like that.  Keeler tied off his braid and turned back to his work, dismissing Encke just as surely as that first day in Keeler’s office.  “I haven’t slept with him again, since you took it upon yourself to scare him off, but I’ll keep _seeing_ whoever I like.  At least you knew I was seeing someone else, I had to find out about Cain from _Athos_.”

“Keeler, it’s not the same, you keep seeing Abel and you or him or you both are gonna end up dead,” Encke said, desperate, shaky with nerves over it, trying to figure out how to explain to Keeler why Fifty was so fucking dangerous without explaining his own part in it and making Keeler hate him.  “You owe me after all this, just fucking _trust_ me for once—“

“I don’t owe you anything,” Keeler said, and it would have been better if Keeler had just slapped him.

Encke balled a fist, angry with Keeler for not trusting him after all this and angrier still with himself for needing it so badly.  Things were supposed to be a certain way between navigators and fighters, there were rules even if no one talked about them, and Encke had done it Keeler’s way too long without getting anywhere.  

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” he snapped before he thought better of it, “you can’t just fuck everybody you feel like.  You fucking wonder why everyone thinks you’re a—“ and he cut himself off as he realized what he was saying, his head finally catching up with his stupid mouth, his nerves getting the better of him every time.

“A _what_ , Encke?” Keeler asked, Encke’s heart beating too fast, panicking.  Keeler glanced back to look him up and down, seeing straight through him and hearing all the worst things Encke had ever thought but never said.  Not until just then.  “A _whore_?” Keeler said finally.  “Is that what you were going to say?”  He shrugged, turning away again.  Looked bored and blank, cold as that first week together.  _You heard everyone else had fucked me, so figured you might as well too?_   “Then say it,” Keeler said.  “Everyone else does, and you obviously think it.  So why not just say it like everyone else?”

Encke stood there shaking, knowing exactly how easy it would be to just say it and prove to Keeler he was just like all his other Enckes.  Then things wouldn’t be so complicated between them, none of this trying to make things work bullshit because they would both know exactly how things were, Keeler afraid of him and Encke not giving a fuck, just like with Fifty.  He clenched his hand, thinking that over, Keeler sitting there stiff and not looking at him, waiting to be proven right.

Encke slammed his hand on the door panel, leaving before he could do anything else he’d regret.


	39. Encke

He knew he shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have walked down to crew quarters after lights out, should have pulled Cassius out of bed instead to go run laps, but he needed to take it out on someone who deserved it, who was already so broken it would’t matter what else Encke did.  Somebody to vent his frustrations over Keeler on, somebody as skinny and beautiful and breakable he didn’t care about breaking.

Fifty answered the door barely dressed, bed rumpled and smelling like sex, his navigator naked in the little nest of mattresses they’d made on the floor.  “Deimos, where the fuck have you been—“  Encke kept his face blank as Fifty covered his shock, bringing an arm up to block the door.  If Encke was surprised Fifty was fucking his navigator, he wasn’t surprised once he thought about it that Thirty and Fifty were sharing the pretty little thing between them.

“Tell your navigator to take a walk,” Encke said quietly.

Fifty stuck his jaw out, stupid, stubborn and defiant.  “No.”

Encke leaned down to say it, watching the navigator over Fifty’s shoulder.  Pretty, soft, normal, not Fifty’s type at all.  “That wasn’t a suggestion, Fifty,” Encke said.

“I don’t fucking care.”  Cain glared up at him, and Encke thought about telling the navigator to leave himself, show them both who was in charge, shove the navigator out of there and prove to Fifty that there wasn’t any safe little nest Encke couldn’t take away from him.  But he took a deep breath and blew it out, thinking about Keeler huddled up in the top bunk for what little safety it gave him from being yanked out of bed by any fighter stronger than him.

Fifty took slow breaths, jaw tight, looking like he wanted to bolt, barely keeping himself from looking back at the little navigator.  “I never went near your navigator,” Fifty said quietly, none of his false bravado in it for once.  “Leave mine alone.”  

And even though Fifty didn’t say it, they could both hear it, the closest Fifty would ever get to begging.  _Please_.  Even if Fifty never said it, he was begging for this as much as Keeler had been with the scotch, because the navigator was the last thing left nobody had taken from him yet.

Encke waited, watching Fifty finger the outline of a knife in his pocket, thinking about that.

Fifty broke first, his hand twitching for it when the silence stretched too long between them.  Encke wrapped a hand around his wrist, crushing the bones of his hand together.  “You don’t pull a knife on me, Reliant,” Encke said slowly.  “Get your ass out here.”

Cain gave him an almost grateful look and glanced back through the door, at his anxious navigator.  Big eyes, scared and earnest, and Encke could see Fifty thinking it over, making a decision.  He let Fifty go long enough to grab his jacket, watching as he knelt and pushed the navigator against the wall, leaning in to whisper.

“ _It’s fine, princess_ , _it’s fine,_ ” Fifty lied.  “Don’t worry, just wait for Deimos, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Abel blushed, brushing fingertips along Fifty’s jaw as he pulled away.  Worried and affectionate even if Abel was fucking Keeler, even if he was being used by Thirty and Fifty both, Encke thought maybe the navigator might not be so sweet and normal after all if he was caught up with someone like Fifty.  And frowned when he caught the quick squeeze Fifty gave his navigator’s hand before following Encke out, closing the door behind them with something that looked like relief.

He lit a cigarette as they walked, the first one in weeks except for quick drags hiding from Keeler down in training.  Took a deep drag of it and passed it over to Fifty, their hands brushing for just a second, the most they’d touched in years without it being sex or a fight.  Encke lit another one for himself, keeping an eye on Fifty to pull a knife on him, but Fifty only walked beside him, tense and just out of reach.  Willing to follow, obedient because he had to be, waiting to be grabbed and shoved around as much as Keeler had been.

“How long you been fucking your navigator?” Encke asked, wondering when Fifty had moved up in the world, handed a sweet, innocent looking navigator for sucking Bering’s cock.

“None of your _fucking_ business,” Fifty snarled, coiling tight, and Encke raised an eyebrow, surprised that was the nerve that hit hardest after all this time, and with Bering’s special little project sacrificing the navigator.  

Something had gotten complicated, Fifty not quite so well trained as Bering thought if he was getting attached.  Encke wondered if the navigator knew, if he was looking to get fucked by everyone besides Fifty.  

Wondered if Fifty knew that his last little corner of control was looking elsewhere, wondered how easy it would be to finally break Fifty by pushing him towards it, hinting until Fifty beat the shit out of his pretty, innocent navigator and did something even Bering would have to throw him away for.  Every last chance for Sacha’s stupid, naive ambitions finally ruined.

_Gonna go career, make a difference._

_If they let me._

_Two was right._

They waited for the lift in silence, Fifty crossing his arms over his chest as he smoked and glaring at the floor.

“Didn’t know you were fifteen,” Encke said when the lift doors closed, leaning against one wall and watching Fifty.

The little shit just shrugged.  Leaned against the far wall, trying to look bored but eyes on the floor just in front of Encke’s feet, watching for him to move.

Encke took a drag on his cigarette.  “Thought you were seventeen or eighteen and just a skinny little shit.  Why’d you lie your way in?”

Fifty glared up at him through his hair, looking at him for the first time.  “You know why,” he said quietly, and Encke did, the dead mother and the sociopath father, getting beaten for being a fag in the foster homes and sucking cock to stay out of the homeless shelters.  Fifty was a fucking fairytale princess, just needed a knight in shining armor to rescue him, even if all he’d gotten was Thirty.  

Encke tried not to think about what part that put him in.

He flicked ash into the corner of the elevator instead of thinking about it.  “Told you basic wasn’t kind to virgins,” he said, even though they both knew whose fault that had been.

“The fuck do you want, Eight?” Fifty snapped when Encke didn’t say anything else, the little shit always too impatient for his own good.  “You drag me out of bed in the middle of the fucking night to get fucking _nostalgic_?  Or you want me to fucking _apologize_ again?  You want me on my knees for it like last time?”

Encke looked him up and down, wishing Fifty didn’t look so much like Keeler, or Keeler so much like Fifty, both of them skinny and broken and scared.  The lift slowed to a stop at training, and Encke watched Fifty tense up, ready to be pulled out of the lift and either fucked rough or have the shit beaten out of him, because what the hell else had they ever done together.

He took a step towards Fifty, dropping his cigarette to grind it out under his boot without looking at it.  Fifty didn’t make a move, tense and backed up against the wall anyway, and just let Encke take his cigarette from him, grinding it out too.  Encke could feel the tension in him, his breath shallow, waiting, always just waiting for something to be done to him.

Fifty tipped his head up to kiss, and Encke should have known better, but kissed him anyway.  Put a hand behind his head, smoothing down his hair, like when things could have worked out between them and been anything besides a deal.  Kissed slow and almost sweet, like when they’d been on leave, before either of them really realized just how bad things between them were.

Encke pulled away first, brushing Fifty’s messy hair out of his face, wishing everything hadn’t gotten so fucking complicated.  “Go back to bed, Cain,” he said.  Back to his worried navigator and his safe little nest, where Encke should never have gone looking for him in the first place.

He left Sacha standing there alone in the lift and went to run laps by himself until he was nauseous, then pounded his hands raw into a punching bag, splitting his knuckles bloody.  Only left to collapse asleep in his office chair when he was too exhausted to think about any of it.


End file.
